


Had Nature an Apostate

by GooseberryPicker, JD_Riley



Series: Victorian A/B/O [11]
Category: Original Work
Genre: A Very Omega Alpha, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Attempted Murder, Blowjobs, Developing Relationship, Dysphoria, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Female Alpha, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Frottage, Gender Dysphoria, Historical, Loss of Virginity, Male Omega, MaleOmega, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mutual Pining, Mystery, Omega Verse, Omegaverse, Oral Sex, Poison, Smut, Switching, Vaginal Sex, Victorian, a/b/o dynamics, closet blowjob, femalpha, poisonous mushroom, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2020-11-24 03:35:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 53,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20900987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GooseberryPicker/pseuds/GooseberryPicker, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JD_Riley/pseuds/JD_Riley
Summary: Tabitha Baxter was supposed to present as an Omega.  She knows all the ins and outs of Omega behavior, she has been classically trained in the ways of a refined debutante, and she was intent on finding the perfect Alpha mate who could reasonably court the daughter of a Duke.  Fate, nevertheless, had other plans--thrusting Tabitha into the role of the Alpha and sending her spiraling into an unknown world.  One in which she is now a Marchioness who must somehow come to grips with her newfound role--that of the predator she has been taught to fear.Dimitri Mavros has been hurt.  Betrayed by a boy he loved, he has quit school and come to England with his father for business reasons and is content to wander through the forests studying the wild mushrooms that grow there.  Willful and loud in both voice and fashion, the American has one favored pastime he simply cannot shake when he discovers the brooding and tiny Alpha who's come to join them all--hemustseduce her.  After all, who could resist setting temptation into the heart of a girl who resists it so deeply?  The only thing he must keep wary not to do is fall in love.





	1. Chapter 1

Lady Tabitha Baxter didn't feel like much of a Lady right this moment. In fact, she felt like a monster. It was to be expected, she supposed, that she would have some anger floating around in her belly after all that had happened to her. She also supposed that it was expected of her to do the sorts of things that would make other people think twice about how ladylike she was. So she put her feet up on the wooden bench in front of her, her eyes focused on the toes of her slippers which were a deep burgundy color that matched the gown she had donned this morning. The skirts draped down toward the floor and got lost in the darkness near her feet as she had drawn the small curtains over the windows closed so she might wallow in her emotions without the light to cheer her up. She didn't wish to be cheered up. She wished to be as angry as possible.

There was nobody to be angry _ at _ , really. That was the real tragedy. She hated burgundy. She hated deep greens. She hated royal purples. She hated all the colors of all of her gowns. She hated them so much, in fact, that she had gone to extraordinary lengths to sneak three of her _ old _ gowns into her luggage. A fine powder blue, a delicate pink lighter than the pinch of her cheeks, and a different shade of blue that was closer to a fine periwinkle. She liked blue. Those would do, she supposed. And perhaps she might even get away with wearing them.

She squeezed her legs tightly together and felt another rush of anger well up within her. It wasn't as though she could show any of this. Though she felt like a monster now, feeling like a monster was for private carriage rides. It was not for company. It was not for showing. Other Alphas might do things like that but Lady Tabitha Baxter did _ not _ act like other Alphas. Lady Tabitha Baxter was _ not _ supposed to be an Alpha.

She huffed out a frustrated little sigh and pulled back one half of a curtain to reveal the countryside as it passed by outside her father's ducal coach. Her frown would leave her with wrinkles if she wasn't careful, she thought sourly. Though what did that matter? Alphas didn't bother about their wrinkles, did they? She huffed again, hoping that she wasn't too close to her uncle's estate. She would hate for any of the servants to get a lungful of her bitter, burning Alpha scent that had permeated the small area when they moved to open the door. An heiress should never have had the thoughts that she did—that someone might think her _ ungrateful _ for her position, well that was simply unacceptable.

After all, she was now the Marchioness of Riverwell, a courtesy title granted to her by her presentation as Alpha. She was the heir to a Duke. Nevermind that she hadn't the faintest idea what the hell that even entailed. Nevermind that every woman in her familial line for _ ages _ had been an Omega. Nevermind that she was _ shorter than her mother. _ Lady Tabitha Baxter was an Alpha and she'd damned well get used to it.

The monster in her seemed to growl and stalk about its cage for a little while but the proclamation that she had made in her mind seemed to quell its anger...at least for now. The women of this family were good at suffering in silence, she thought wryly, and she supposed that it was her lot as well to do so. Though, she thought with an upward quirk of her brow, being an Alpha meant that some things were supposed to be easier. Her father certainly hadn't complained about it—it meant that his line could legally continue through her rather than through her uncle and her rather odious first cousin, George. Her Uncle was not a man with a very good sense for money and had made poor investments over the course of a few years. Her father had suggested to her that she be wary of the man's business acumen and especially of his business partners—they may not have always been entirely what they seemed.

She didn't have a mind for business. At least, she didn't think she did. She'd never actually tried. The whole of her life, she thought of herself as on the verge of a presentation into Omegahood and now that she was faced with the exact opposite reality, she was caught completely unawares. There was so much she didn't know. So much she would have to learn. If she was to be a Duchess, that would mean much of her life would change—and business was just one side of it. How she would ever get the hang of investments and estate management, she wasn't sure she could know. She was much better at embroidery. Or playing the piano. Or sketching. She was _ quite _ good at sketching. But these weren't the accomplishments of a Duke's heir.

She pulled out her fan and began to wave it at herself, trying to dispel the nervousness that had begun to take the place of her bitter anger. Her Uncle's estate was surrounded by many acres of wooded land that lined the fields and meadows under his care. It was a place she had often explored with her sisters when they were young, climbing over downed trees and playing games in which one of them was often a princess and the others were often her sworn and valiant knights. They took turns to see who the strong and able princess was but terribly often it was Tabitha who lorded over the wood, her bare feet against cold, rotting wood as she lifted up a stick and let out her battle cry. Of course, with age came discipline. With discipline came quietude. A proper Omega would not do such a thing...and so Tabitha and her sisters did not. She would step into these woods again, she thought, and she might let out her battle cry. This time not the faint warble of a child but the forceful power of an _ Alpha. _

She pinched her lips together.

_ Or perhaps I will not. _ A deep well of embarrassment took over and she put her feet down upon the floor of the coach. Lady Tabitha Baxter was _ not _ a monster. There might have been a monster inside but there was no monster here now. She forced herself to loosen her legs and she placed her hands upon her lap, a pit in her stomach when she thought about what was beneath her hands under all this fabric.

_ Don't think about it. _

She couldn't help it. It was there anyway. She was so small in stature and yet her whole life was dictated by this _ thing _ that had grown between her legs. It had _ ruined _ her season. All of her dresses had to be remade. All of her friends had been terrified of her—and what had hurt her the most wasn't even that she would never find herself giggling and eying the Alpha Lords from the center of the cluster...it was that her best friend of all these years, Lady Winifred Pinefore, had peered upon her in horror when she had gently pleaded for a discreet and simple marriage.

She felt the monster bat at the bars of its cage but then felt a more overwhelming sense of grief grip her instead. Winnie had been sympathetic, a light in the darkness. She had offered kindness—but, as Tabitha found out, no more than that.

_ “Will you marry me, Winnie? You'll be a Duchess, wouldn't that be lovely?” _

Her thoughts tumbled as she sat in the darkness of the coach, her mouth weighted at the corners.

_ “Tabitha...I...I know not what to say. For I have always thought you my bosom friend and now you offer to me for a wife. A friendship like ours...like that of Omegas...I cannot remove such an aspect of you from my mind. You...you are no Alpha to me, Tabitha. Forgive me. But I cannot find passion with you...I cannot make you happy. I must decline...you understand.” _

_ “Of...of course...I am...I am sorry to have suggested it.” _

She wasn't sorry. She wasn't sorry in the least. The only thing Tabitha was sorry about was that she had wasted any time in London at all. She was sorry she had allowed them all to coo about how unfortunate she was amongst themselves. She was sorry that she had walked around the edges of the ballrooms of the capital being whispered about by Alphas and Omegas alike. It seemed, sometimes, that her only allies were the Betas who complimented her new gowns and the style of her hair. The girls who were quite often placed along the walls were sweet to her at least but it was an aloof sort of sweet that suggested perhaps that her only misfortune when it came to _ them _ was that they were all taller than she. And blast those Idlewinds, she thought again, for inadvertently peering down at her from their _ ridiculous _height!

At least her uncle's estate was secluded. At least it was in the middle of nowhere. At least she could simply rest and not have to worry about anything other than coming to terms with her smallness and the fact that there was this unwelcome _ thing _ that had come to dominate her entire life dangling between her thighs. She frowned down at her lap and whispered softly, feeling stupid.

“_ We are going to come to an understanding, you and I. _”

She could feel it there, flaccid and annoying. Sitting against her leg as though it were some innocent little thing that could take no responsibility for how it had simply _ appeared _ and wrecked havoc all over her life. Maybe she could come to ignore it. Maybe she would figure out a way to find a mate in the next season. Maybe her uncle knew the Neverells—wasn't that Duke's daughter his heir as well? Perhaps that Alpha had some advice for her despite having been a bit older. As Tabitha recalled, she had married the saucy little Victoria Lanchester. There had to be someone who knew either of them. There had to be someone she could write to who might know what the devil she was going through.

Tabitha sighed, allowing herself to ease back against the bench, relaxing into the idea that there was nothing that she could really do aside from seek to understand herself. At least there was this. There was nothing else to be anxious about—just long walks in the countryside and finding out just what it meant to be an Alpha. Perhaps when she was finished with such an introspective holiday, she would discover the secret to making peace with this hideous accoutrement she'd acquired.

_ Perhaps I should wear trousers. Doesn't Netherfield wear trousers? Of course she does. So does that Miss Straffton. But both of them are tall and dashing. I'm...well I'm small and absurd. _

She startled greatly when the door to the coach was opened and she put a hand to her throat awkwardly. She hadn't even realized that they'd stopped moving. Catching her breath, she stood up and exited, assisted by the hand of a footman who appeared and who then took to her luggage. Her slippers crunched against the gravel beneath them and she looked up at the high arched door of her uncle's manor. The house itself was rather impressive but when she entered, she could see why her father had always shook his head when he spoke of his brother.

The carpet was a bit worn and the style of furnishings a tad out of date. The livery the footmen wore was a little faded and some of them were even wearing trousers that didn't quite fit just right—the hems having been let out and still a bit flooded. Of course, her uncle never really did lose anything of importance. He seemed to rise and fall with the tides and was ever the optimist. Her cousin, however...

“Tabitha!” came the cry of that very demon, his voice grating to her ears as he approached. Despite being an Alpha, his tone was relatively squealing which matched his countenance, as his cheeks were wide and florid, his eyes squinted and his forehead too-large. His own clothes were of a high quality but were a tight fit as though when his tailor had told him the numbers, he had insisted the man was wrong by several inches. His waistcoat strained as he held his arms open in greeting and Tabitha was uniquely frightened that he might put out one of her eyes with a popped button. “Tabitha what a woman you've become!”

She neatly avoided his embrace with a careful sidestep and gave him a polite curtsy. “George, how lovely it is to see you.” Her scent must have given her away as a liar for the man dropped his arms and responded with a sigh through his nose and a tight smile.

He cleared his throat. “You've come at just the most interesting of times, cousin.”

“How is that?” she asked softly, taking care to temper her voice. It had come as a shock to her how easily now she could command with the simple tool and how edged it felt in her throat.

“Father's got one of his business partners staying with us for a time. Not only that but we've a few other guests as well.”

“Oh dear...and here I thought I would have the run of it.” She tried to keep humor in her voice but it could not hide the disappointment she felt.

“Do not be inconvenienced by them, cousin, you and I can stay out from under foot quite well, I think. I am certain that should you seek to take your meals in your chamber, father would certainly allow it.”

She eyed him with a renewed suspicion. There was something he wasn't telling her. He wasn't all that good at lying and when they were children, he had been an awful manipulator. Of course, Tabitha wasn't so terrible at getting the truth out behind his back. Carefully, she skirted the issue. “Is there a maid for me, George?”

“You've not brought a valet?”

“I don't want a valet. I want a maid.”

He blinked at her, his eyes beady and curious for a few moments before he caught a footman and asked for a woman named Maggie. “I see you've chosen to stay in your gowns. Noble of you. It's rather distasteful I think for women of your circumstance to trot about in trousers. I cannot believe they allow such women as peers. What sort of example—”

“George?”

“Yes?”

“I would rather not discuss women of my circumstance.” She was curious as to what he might do with this small statement. She was a Lady and an heir. She was an _ Alpha _ despite looking up at him. He rightly had no recourse to speak back to her about her place or anything of the like. It suddenly dawned upon her that she was _ Marchioness. _ She could be as rude as she wished to the boy who had pulled at her hair when she was just a pup.

He did not reply to her and was then overshadowed by the presence of an older Omega servant who curtsied low. “Mum? You've need of a maid?”

“I do. You are Maggie?”

“I am, mum.”

“I am Lady Tabitha. May be shown to my room?”

“Of course, my Lady. Right this way.” She took her then and upon parting, Tabitha let George have a little smile that she hoped conveyed to him that she would absolutely not be putting up with any of his manipulations. Maggie spoke in a low and soft tone that put her immediately at ease. “I think you'll find your stay here very nice, my Lady. There are a few guests, of course, but they all seem very kind.”

“Tell me about them?”

“Yes, my Lady. Mr. Hardrow is a financier from Bristol. He's got a cutting wit and quite a few stories from his days as a Captain. Mrs Witters is a widow from the nearby village. I believe your uncle may be sweet on her but you didn't hear it from me.” Maggie's cheeks were a bit pink. “Forgive me, my Lady, but your countenance disarms me. Should I speak out of line, you must admonish me.”

“Oh no,” Tabitha smiled at her as they walked on, “I do think that my build has its advantages. Putting Omegas at ease is surely one of them. Do continue. I've need for such things to occupy my mind.”

“Very well, my Lady. Mr. and Mrs. Vickers are tourists your uncle discovered and sought to put up for a time. And the last...well...Mr. Mavros is Mr. Baxter's business partner from America. He's brought with him his Omega son, a curious boy. Very flashy. Likes long walks in the woods and has a rather peculiar way about him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well...to be frank, my Lady, the boy is _ rude. _”

“Hmm.” She'd never met an Omega who was rude before. But then again, she had scarce met any Americans. They were known to be difficult, loud, and in many ways quite the handful. Of course, this was what George was hoping she would miss—an Omega presumably of marriageable age. “I suppose my cousin is besotted.”

“The boy is not similarly afflicted.”

“Of course not.”

Maggie was smiling, sneaking conspiratorial glances toward Tabitha as they reached her chamber and she opened the door to allow the Alpha inside. “You'll find that you've been given the best of the rooms. Your uncle knew you were coming and made certain not to give it to any of his other guests. You are his favorite, he said.”

She grinned to herself. “Maggie? Might you help me with something?”

“Anything, my Lady.”

“Might you get this gown off of me? I've brought some others I feel much more comfortable in.”

“Yes. Which color would you like?”

“There is a light blue one at the bottom of my trunk, wrapped in paper so my mother wouldn't see it. I'd like to wear it.”

“Light blue?” She gave pause only for a moment before her mouth formed a peculiar little smile and she nodded gently. “Very good, my Lady. And after, I might do your hair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tabitha: "This is the darkest timeline."
> 
> Welcome to my new FemAlpha/Male Omega. GooseberryPicker and I are gonna try to do right by you again.


	2. Chapter 2

Above all the things that Dimitri liked about wandering around the forests of England, he had to admit that the way the ground gave off a cool, musty scent was his favorite. Not that forests in America didn't give off cool, musty scents, but they didn't have quite what English forests had. He wondered sometimes if it was the soil composition that gave them such a scent or perhaps it was the weather patterns that made it overcast and rainy much of the time. His boots, high, well-made, and quilted, were inches from a damp and giving patch of soil which would have muddied them greatly but he didn't wish to come any closer—he might risk damaging his sample. His double-breasted brocade vest was covered for the most part by a long, dark-colored apron that covered most of his trousers as well and he wore sleeve-covers over the sleeves of his morning frock coat. Unfortunately, the tail of such a coat was wont to touch the damp soil if he knelt so much of the time he found himself bent at the waist, peering down at the fungus he so adamantly observed.

He sketched his observations in his small notebook, developing the gentle sloping bulge of the mushroom's cap before he very gently scribbled the pattern of the gills. It was a delicate piece of fungus and could not stand for much change to its environment and so Dimitri could not get overly close to it. He would be observing it for the next few days to sketch the fashion in which it would decompose—the age of a mushroom many times transforming it greatly and hindering identification. He was excited for this particular specimen but there were a few in this batch of forest that had caught his eye. Many that found their way onto the trees in such a place were of great interest to him and those that formed the “mysterious” fairy-rings could also merit a decent bit of study. Of course, he found that most of the rings here had been formed by the common _miller_ and were of no real importance to his studies...but he sketched them anyway and remarked upon their location, growth patterns and formations in his journal.

This was merely a way to pass the time while he was trapped here in England at the behest of his father. He would have stayed at school had the place been of any more use to him. He sighed to himself. Without the coveted position upon his former professor's research team, there was really nothing that could draw him further into study at _that_ particular institution. Even now he felt as though there were grains of salt in that wound.

_“No one would take you seriously. An Omega scientist?”_

Dimitri stood up straight suddenly, studying his sketches with a critical eye before he snapped the journal shut and began to march his way back to the edge of the forest. The sun was beginning to move further toward the western half of the sky and the manor in which he and his father were staying was looming over the landscape like some kind of haunting specter. It was a drafty place that was too large for its own good. A house that had been built as though it were meant for ten families to share and yet it was merely in use by some sod and his whimpering pig of a son.

_George_ was an Alpha and hardly much of one. He strutted around as though his distinctive dynamic should have made any difference at all in how Dimitri regarded him. Of course it didn't and of course the thick-skulled neanderthal couldn't begin to fathom that an Omega might not consider him decent enough company even for dogs. He was nothing like the dignified and well-composed Betas that used to run about at school in America.

It wasn't as though Dimitri held the opinion that Betas were a superior dynamic. It was only that he had more _experience_ with them. The premier college of science that Dimitri had attended had been rather average in the distribution of dynamics—the Beta being the reigning distinction simply due to the nature of such a creature. Betas, by their very formation, were prone to finding the value of nature, biology, botany, and other scientific pursuits. They were focused and driven in ways that Alpha and Omegas were thought to be deficient—something many Alphas and a few Omegas found preposterous. The college, of course, had its share of Alpha scientists come and go but had never once before boasted the attendance of an _Omega._

Dimitri almost wished that they had never bothered with him. But then again, he had to wryly consider that it was likely beneficial for him to have found betrayal in such a place—it would save him from having to experience it from his spouse. Despite this thought, he was almost certain that he would find plenty of betrayal within his future marriage—whenever that might be.

He stepped up onto a large rock that jutted out from the damp soil of the meadow and he gazed at the glittering windows of the large manor which seemed to glare over at him from across the fields. He felt accused of something vague and peculiar. He felt a familiar shame begin to well up in his heart and he smashed it with an unrelenting and brutal fortitude. He'd never been a boy who felt shame. He'd had no reason to. When it had been known that he was a bright boy and that his interests were in the realm of science, his father had made certain that he would have a place at school for his studies. When he'd presented as an Omega, his father had told him that it would all be taken care of, that he would never lose his place. He hadn't. He'd excelled. He'd made history as the first Omega to attend. He'd been as proud of himself as he'd always been—without a single doubt of himself. Without a shred of shame.

And then came Lucas. Handsome. Bold. Intelligent with a cutting wit that was terribly attractive for a boy like Dimitri. He had been fit and somewhat tall for a Beta. Lithe and well-formed, he had been the captain of the rowing team and he'd shown a great interest in Dimitri's sketches and observations.

_Too great an interest._

He knelt down among the grasses and leaned over a small flower that was poking out of the ground. Flowers were too easy. They were identifiable by sight alone and required no actual thought. They sought to attract bees for pollination and they were flashy and showy. They didn't hide among the dirt but did their best to leap from their station to do what they were meant to do—propagate. They required assistance to that end, of course, from the bees that would spy their pretty colors and do their matchmaking upon their little hairy legs.

Mushrooms and other such wild fungi were unique. They were in a conventional sense, ugly. They found propagation in subversive ways that required no servants. Some of them spread in silly ways that formed little circles often considered portals into the wilds of the Fae. There was something about forest and meadow mushrooms that Dimitri found particularly pleasant—perhaps the sometimes musty smell of them. Perhaps the subtle danger of them—the more toxic sorts forcing a death he could not bear to witness nor wish upon even _Lucas._

_Hmmm, maybe Lucas._

He wondered how he had ever lived without such bitterness. It seemed a part of him now. He had always been loud. He had always been saucy. He had always been _too much_. But now it seemed as though everything were amplified. As though he could not even begin to consider how he might make himself shy for the sake of his father or company. How a young Omega such as himself could have been _demure_ or _unobtrusive._ It eluded him. This, he supposed, was one of the reasons his father had brought him to England. That he might learn from the noble little creatures how to be modest and quiet. How to attract an Alpha or a man who might tame him like the petulant little shrew he was. Not that he wished to be tamed in the slightest. Not that he wished to do anything but hide away in the forest for the rest of his days to study the fungal growths among the trees and submit his papers when he was finished with them.

He would have enjoyed that. A little hermit in a cottage in the woods with his papers and his books and his sketching pencils. The ideal scenario, of course, would be that he would have found support somewhere enough to do such a thing. But his father was not one to buy into such a dream and, after finding out that he had failed to secure the coveted position upon his professor's research team, the Alpha had made up his mind that further tuition was a waste of his resources. Dimitri, he declared, would go to England with him and he would be married. If his mate would allow him his freedom in such a manner, then his mate should provide the compensation.

“Damn you, Lucas,” he whispered over the wildflowers that were smiling up at him. He picked one of the flowers and examined it. The simple yellow flower stared back at him without guile. He'd been given plenty of flowers by the other students. He'd been too focused to worry about who was making the attempt to seduce him. They all blended together. Except one.

Because at the first, it hadn't seemed as though anything about the interaction was remiss. It was a simple conversation. The Beta had come to him to ask him a question about his morels. It was something anyone could have asked him. Where he'd found them wasn't his closely guarded secret the way it was for some other folks—morels to him were merely specimens. He'd wandered into the woods and Lucas had followed diligently, drawing his little map to the location.

_“Morels are my favorite, you know. They're damned delicious. You know I was impressed by your report on Cordyceps Militaris and its medicinal usages. Your study was quite insightful and I was similarly impressed with the format of your interviews with first-hand accounts. You know it's rare to find a scientist that does not discount the role of humans in their samples.”_

It was disarming. Disarming had been the point. Lucas had secured the location of the ever-coveted morels and had managed to create a wedge into Dimitri's interest, allowing him then the space and the time to prattle on about his further studies into the medicinal usages of all sorts of other mushrooms. It was difficult to find information on some specimens without discussing the details of their usages with those who had personally utilized them and, _of course_, many who held such knowledge were not those keen to share it.

He remembered feeling a pinch of apprehension when he had considered sharing the name of the doctor he had managed to come into contact with who had shared with him an incredibly vast array of knowledge passed on to him by the Plains Indians. He was thankful now that he hadn't as the information and research that Dr. Pruitt had sent him during his school days had remained safe and untouched in his possession still to this day. That apprehension he had felt had been the first stirring of his instinct—one he should have fully listened to.

Lucas was a snake. For months he had subtly played upon Dimitri's loneliness, becoming his only friend and then, very slowly, finding his way to becoming the Omega's warmth. His hands brushing over Dimitri's shoulders and arms had become a fantasy of sorts and each time it came, it was only too obvious that he wanted. That he yearned. Lucas could have done anything to him and he thought he might not have minded. He didn't remember feeling any apprehension when he had allowed the older boy to sneak into his lonely room one night and kiss him until he felt silly with it. He didn't remember feeling a pinch of _anything_ beyond pleasure when he'd obeyed the request to lay back and allow Lucas to _have him._

He'd felt wonderful. It was nice to be wanted. It was nice to feel like someone really cared. The Beta studied the same sort of thing that he did—he understood. He would let Dimitri go on and on about properties of mushrooms and could even provide substance when there was substance to be provided. How could he discount the value of a man holding the same interest as he?

_Easy. Cynicism._

It was easy _now_. After he'd found himself drugged and all of his independent research he'd been intending to present to Professor Ulwin stolen. Lucas had presented it instead, having a rather lackluster amount of research he'd completed on his own and finding use for his lover after all. Without proof that all the work was his own, Dimitri was summarily rejected for his accusations by the professor and Lucas was given the spot upon the research team that would have, by all rights, gone to the Omega.

The whole of it left a rather sour taste in his mouth. The way Lucas had presented the matter so calmly after Dimitri had screeched his frustrations—as though his emotions were what made his arguments invalid and not any of the logic that was presented within. He could not scream and _win_. He would be seen as irrational. But there was no other fashion in which he could express his rage and so Lucas calmly replied to him and made him feel _shame._ Shame for having been an Omega. Shame for having been easy to seduce. Shame for having been so stupid as to trust someone who was vying for the same prize as he.

And so Dimitri felt shame. It wasn't often. It wasn't hard to quash. But it came up every once in awhile and he was reminded that there was no man or woman in the world who could so easily lead him astray. His guard was his Omega nature. Such a thing was a weapon, surely, and wielded in so many differing ways throughout the world. Dimitri's way was simply _louder_. No one in the world would ever make him feel shame again. Only his memories and those would fade in time.

He took a step from the rock he stood upon and began to cross through the meadow toward the house, crushing grasses as he walked and carefully stepping over clusters of fungus as he went. The house became larger and larger until he was along the edge where the lawn was mown. He could see the garden that sprawled out from the back of the manor and the stone benches that littered the gravel pathways that were open and without cover to discourage trysting.

Powder blue caught his eye. A gown he had not yet seen on a woman he had not yet met. He was too far away from her to capture any distinctive features but he knew from the manner of her seated form that she was an Alpha despite her size and despite the coloring of her gown. She was holding a book but she was not reading it, her attention focused upon something off in the distance. When he looked, he could find nothing of note, and surmised that the poor creature was perhaps caught in a daze that was born from something rather terrible.

He recognized that very stare as something he had been wont to do after the _event._ Lucas had actually thought it completely natural what he'd done and had expected Dimitri to continue their affair and marry him without question. He'd found it laughable that the Omega had ever entertained that he could be a _true_ scientist. He'd thought it a lark. It was these thoughts that had consumed him and allowed him to stare for long stretches of time into nothing at all.

Dimitri peered at her, curious as to what could have occurred that would force an _Alpha_ into such a state. It must have been truly awful. He considered walking right into the garden and into her field of vision but in the end decided against it. He drew close enough to study her more intently, finding her engrossment much too advanced to allow for her to notice him, especially with the wind negligible as it was. He found her to be quite pretty, her hair pulled up into what looked to be a delicate chignon marked by its wispy nature formed with many pins and a careful and deliberate curl to her locks. Soft, straight feathers stuck up from the place where it met her head, short and in a darker hue than her gown, their whimsy something he rather liked though their modesty something he would never have considered.

He was intrigued by her. An Alpha so small with a manner so prim and well-developed despite her nature which gave her a bold jut to her chin and a tension in her shoulders that marked her as well and truly an Alpha. He wanted to tease her. He wanted her eyes to settle upon him instead of finding nothing at all in the spaces around her. He wanted to see them sharp and focused rather than dull and lost. He wanted to make her snap at him just to see the range of her emotions for his curiosity was aching—was she so put-together as she seemed? Or was she as volatile as any Alpha prodded for too long? Whatever her nature, he would discover it, he determined soundly to himself as he wandered around the house toward the entrance. She was new and exciting and the attractive pout of her lips was enticing to a boy who had spent much too long without a lover to excite him. He paused for a moment, pressing his lips just slightly together again when he thought of her kiss. Would she kiss like an Alpha?

Dimitri simply _had_ to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [eyes emoji]
> 
> We'll see if Tabitha ever gets his tragic backstory out of him.


	3. Chapter 3

The very moment she caught the first glimpse of the younger Mr. Mavros, she found him to be an utter disaster in all matters fashion and she had to wring out her memories in the attempt to remember any of her former interactions with Americans. Surely not all Americans looked like this. She'd heard giggles from Omegas about former visitors to London ballrooms but none of those giggles had been about their _fashion. _It was almost as though, in his attempt at finding a common ground with Londoners, he had consulted experts who'd written perhaps several decades prior. Still, beneath all of that, there was a natural prettiness about him that could have been beautiful had he not been afflicted with such terrible taste.

It was really no wonder why George was so enamored of him, she thought. He held himself in a rather loose kind of way, as she imagined was very American of him, and his manner was decidedly flippant as she could tell even before he spoke. There was something rather foreign about him and though she had not yet heard him speak, it was said that the sound of a man's voice from beyond the Atlantic was an interesting aspect indeed.

He emerged from the doors to the garden and Tabitha was wrenched from her daydreams by his presence and that of his father and her uncle who followed him. She stood immediately, determined to remember all of the good manners of having presented as an Alpha. She was meant to bow but as she was wearing a skirt, she gave the boy a deep curtsy instead. Among the daisies and the sweet pea, his scent was something to behold as it came to her on a light and teasing summer breeze. The most alarming of his features was not his scent but the wicked glow of his eyes which sought to hold her in thrall. Tabitha, in the past, would have flicked her gaze downward, but now an Alpha, she held his stare and challenged it.

“Lady Tabitha,” her uncle grinned, putting his arms out to his sides in greeting. “My beautiful niece, you are ever more lovely. The distinction of heir and the manner of an Alpha have made you a force indeed, I see.” He chuckled a bit and she was unable to determine if he did so out of uncertainty for his eyes had taken in the whole of her—height and all. “This is my business partner from America, Mr. Mavros, and his lovely son, Dimitri.”

Mr. Mavros was a clean-looking Alpha in a sack coat that betrayed his background. No doubt the man wore a bowler and the hat likely was the cause for the lay of his hair which stuck close to his head. He was completed by a bushy mustache which connected to his cheeks and hair by way of well-trimmed mutton chops which rather made him look like someone's very severe dog. Tabitha gave him a small, singular curtsy before she turned her attention upon the younger Mavros—Dimitri.

He was wearing a two-tiered and embroidered cape over nearly translucent sleeves which ended in bunched lace and his waistcoat matched the light color of his cape. He had eschewed the convention of men's fashion of the day—that was, proper trousers—and was donning rather feminine breeches which drew together just under his knees by way of a small, silver ribbon which was bowed to the side. Beneath, he wore high quilted boots which she noted were muddied along the bottom edge—a mar to the otherwise exceptionally put-together ensemble. Of course, Tabitha could not miss the delicate application (and perhaps _reapplication_) of a matching color of lip paint—a detail that was as vexing as it was bizarre.

_I want to wipe it off. I want to see what color his lips really are._

The sudden thought startled her and she blinked, opening her mouth to reply but finding nothing forthcoming for she had been so surprised by her own mind.

Dimitri bowed low, his black hair fanning forward in a loose wave before he rose again, the tips of that jet hair just barely brushing over his slender shoulders covered by his cape. “My Lady. It is good to finally have reprieve. From all your cousin has spoken, one would think him the last available Alpha of Earth. Clearly, I see that isn't the case.” His voice was rich and light as whipping cream but the manner in which he spoke was jarring to her ears, each word flat and lacking the musical qualities of those around her and even on the continent. That a boy should look like he did and have such an unfortunate sound to him—she nearly felt uncharitable having thought of it.

Tabitha took in a deep breath through her nose, grateful that his scent was so pleasant as to nullify those of her uncle and the elder Mr. Mavros. “Good afternoon, Mr. Mavros, I do hope you have not found your company lacking—”

“Oh, I have,” he interrupted, his expression calculating and strange despite its inherent prettiness.

Mr. Mavros said nothing, apparently not at all peevish by his son's impertinent nature.

She cleared her throat. “I suppose, then, that we will remedy such an injustice.”

“I hope so,” he replied. “I've been dying for a decent dinner partner and I thought I just might if it came down to it, even if I had to do the job myself.” He approached her and to her supreme ire, he peered down at her, this Omega quite clearly taller than she. “It will be nice to have an interesting conversation for once in this dreary country.”

_A brat! A spoiled and pretentious little narcissist!_

She stared at him, a small pool of frustration bubbling up in her gut. Most of the time when such a feeling plagued her, she felt rather like she might cry—now was a different story. She rather thought she'd like to pull this little creature across her lap and spank him until he was begging her for an inch of mercy. Where such thoughts came from, she wasn't certain—though she did have an inkling. She was, after all, now an Alpha. Was this the sort of thing Alphas often thought of doing? Tabitha swallowed, wondering how easily she could drag him off his feet and pull him down into her lap.

The flaccid form of her _Alphaness_ twitched between her thighs and she was suddenly too-aware of it.

“Mr. Mavros—”

“Call me Dimitri.”

Her mouth worked uselessly for a few moments, “I beg—”

“I don't mind. Formalities are so boring, after all, aren't they?”

Her uncle spoke, mirth in his words, “Rightly so, of course. A terrible bore, aren't they? The rigid expectations of society are of no use among good friends.”

Tabitha raised her brow at her uncle's words , “I do not recall even the closest of friends to the Duke of Asterly calling him anything but 'Duke' or 'Asterly' and—”

“And you are a Duke? How novel,” Dimitri mused, absentmindedly fingering the edge of his cape.

“I am a Marchioness, heir to a Duke,” she replied plainly, her frustrations mounting. “I will inherit and I will have no one discount me.”

“But I am not a Marchioness, nor heir to a Duke,” the boy replied “and there is nothing about me that would imply that I am deserving of any such respect. My name is Dimitri. That is what I like to be called.”

“It isn't about what you _like_ to be called.” She gave her head a little shake and huffed out a sigh, the stinging in her scent likely obvious to the boy close to her. If he smelled it, he did not let on, his face still displaying a small, secretive smile that placed her on edge more than any other aspect of him could. “It is about _propriety_.”

“You know,” the Omega replied softly, “your cousin is not so boring.”

She gave a tiny gasp, her mouth falling open. Rendered speechless, she almost did not hear the rest of the conversation as it was steered by her uncle and Mr. Mavros toward something less to do with Tabitha. She was grateful, of course, that she did not have to contribute, for she was at odds with herself. She had never felt this sort of emotional turmoil within before and she could not imagine that it was anything that was unrelated to her Alpha presentation—this was a challenge and one that was instinctual and deeply-rooted in the primal urges of _Alpha_. She could remove herself from her own mind and body and recognize that this was a manipulation and yet she could not stop herself from feeling the effects.

_If you ever wish for an Alpha to do something, all you must do is place down the challenge that they could never have done it and they will move Heaven and Earth to spite you. An Alpha cannot help but wish to stand above his fellows and his compatriots. Move them. Manipulate them. Speak to them and plant the seeds of doubt in their mind—it is a dangerous game but one that can bring you a good and useful marriage._

Lessons she had learned as an Omega could provide insight now but they could not help her in unlocking the instinct that raged within her. She wanted to take him into her hands and shake him. She wanted to put him on his knees and demand he tell her what he meant by all of it. But as she thought of these things, she could only stare at his smug stance, could only fume at the flickery little glances he bestowed upon her as though he were giving mere drops of water to a woman dying of thirst in a vacant desert.

_Omegas_, she thought with a venom that disturbed her own sensibilities. The whole of her life she had thought herself among a sorority of friends and now, suddenly, it was as though all of those tactics must and should be used against her. Was her insight even worth it? Was all of that time learning in the Omega manner to be wasted?

As soon as was prudent, she removed herself from the men in the garden and ruminated on the possible outcome of taking supper in her room. She couldn't rightly do such a thing with the challenge laid before her and yet she almost wished to prove the damned little creature wrong for his attempts to manipulate her. That would certainly send a message, she thought sourly, if she were to stay away from him and keep herself to her rooms. But whom did she most dislike? George? Or this petulant little interloper who had intruded on her get-away?

_Oh devil take him, he knows I hate George more than I could hate him—I barely know him and I'm quite well acquainted with my despicable cousin._

She stopped herself in the hallway just outside her room, leaning on the wall there and allowing her mind to wander a bit as she thought of Dimitri's jet black hair and the gaudy lip paint he'd so judiciously applied. His lips—so sweet and so soft beneath the unnatural color and the way they formed the perfect shape to convey his sly emotions. He was slender, beautiful, and without those clothes—she covered her eyes with her hand.

_Without his clothes..._

Lithe. Pale. Stunningly gorgeous. Naked shoulders and exposed collarbones. The softest, most supple and delicious skin she could ever behold. A passionate creature just as all Omegas were passionate and hot-blooded. She could see the potential in him for high emotion and it was this that caused her body to tighten. How would his hands feel if he touched her? How would his body feel under her own exploration? Even just the warmth of him if she were to pass her fingertips over some hidden place upon his body—his knee? His ankle?

She could feel herself becoming ever more flustered and the hand that was not over her eyes was suddenly clenched at her skirt, just over her groin. She could feel the _thing_ between her legs becoming engorged with blood at her whimsical fantasy. How could she deny herself her imagination, after all? Omegas were blessed with such vivid fantasies—why not Alphas? She wanted to tell it to go away and then she wanted to hold it, caress it, squeeze it at the base and know all things about it so that she might exploit it or subvert it or...or _both._ How could she come to grips with her own sexuality and her own urges without seeing it for its true power? She could feel it, butting up against the heel of her palm as she gripped her skirts, pushing forward at thoughts of this frustrating little American pest!

_How dare he speak to me like this! How dare he defy conventions! Does he not know that I cannot control every bit of myself at once? Does he not know that an Alpha newly presented is a dangerous adversary to create? God help me!_

A sweetness came to her and it was strong and cloying and at the first, she hoped it was him. She pulled her hand down from her eyes and took a longer breath, feeling a heady and uncontrolled haze begin to descend over her. It was so strong, in fact, that she felt her eyes begin to roll back and she thought that perhaps she was close to fainting.

“Alpha...” came a small murmur, a gentle word to capture her attention. It was uttered with an almost child-like awe that snapped Tabitha back from wherever her mind might have gone.

The haze remained and Tabitha refocused, blinking several times while she pressed her back hard against the wallpaper. Before her, perhaps five feet from her, was a girl of perhaps sixteen. Her hair was mussed and hung about her shoulders in a nest borne from tossing and turning her head in rampant struggles. Her eyes were rheumy and vacant, the pupils overly-large and about her mouth was the shine of saliva.

_She's out of her mind._

Discordant thoughts raged through the Alpha's brain, pulsing with each breath she took of the pervasive scent that encompassed her. The length of her was hard, throbbing, and full between her thighs, begging for this girl—this _Omega._

_Omega. Omega! Omega!!!_

Her dressing gown was gaped open at the front and it seemed as though the girl wore absolutely nothing beneath, the slope of one small breast clearly visible and the point of her nipple that shone through the fabric became the center-point of Tabitha's vision. From the corner, she could see the blurred edge of a bloodstain upon the sleeve and the warning bells in her mind began to press into each and every disturbed thought.

_My god, she could smell me. She could smell my frustrated arousal. She's broken through her heat bonds to come find me and take me. A fool, I've been to fantasize here and to let my scent filter through this hall and under these doors!_

Still, the girl needed to be cared for.

“Omega...” she tried, finding her mouth dry and her tongue tacky. “You need help.”

Her voice was soft and pleading, her bare feet dragging over the carpet. “I need you.”

Tabitha could scarce breathe, the mere moment it took for her to open her mouth again having lasted a thousand years. She still did not make a sound before she was grasped by her upper arm in a strong, maternal grip. Instinctively she knew she was held by Maggie and a myriad of other women, Betas and Omegas, had come around them and taken the struggling girl in hand.

She could hear herself through her ringing ears. “She needs help! Please!”

Maggie's voice was hard at her ear. “Yes, she needs help, Alpha, but you are not the one who can complete that task.”

“But she needs water...she needs...”

“She needs water, my Lady, she does not need an Alpha.”

“An Alpha? No...no!” She vaguely understood that she had no longer been against the wall. That somehow without her own knowledge, she had taken steps toward this girl. The thought plagued her suddenly and she felt her heart wrench from her chest at the sound of the Omega's cries.

“_Alpha! Alpha! Alpha!_”

Maggie was in her ear again. “She is not yours, Alpha. You cannot help her. No matter what you think are able to do—you cannot.”

Tabitha blinked, the Omega gone from her sight and nothing left with her but the woman, Maggie. Her breaths were shallow and tears began to form in the backs of her eyes. “I...I...I didn't...”

“I know, my Lady. You didn't touch her.”

“I...she was...her scent...”

“I will get you a cold compress, my Lady. You were with her but a few moments alone and you did quite well for yourself in your restraint. As young an Alpha as you are, that is very commendable.”

She couldn't speak for the lump in her throat. “But she needed...”

“Nothing you could give.”

Horror began to dawn upon her then. All of the hideous realities of Alphahood began to crash around her as lightning in an open meadow.

_I could have raped her. I could have touched her and thought I was doing the right thing. I took steps away from that wall without even realizing what I was doing—I could have become the monster I had always known to fear._

Her tears escaped suddenly and she pulled away from Maggie's hold, running off the opposite direction from where they had taken the girl, seeking only to rid her nose of that potent aroma that haunted her and reminded her of how _Alpha_ she really was. No amount of light blue or powder pink or feathers in her hair could erase what had become of her—what kind of monster lay within her. Omegas could never trust her around them again. Her sorority of sisters—of Omegas, would never see her the same way they had before and she could never in a thousand years recreate the comfort she felt in their presence. She was supposed to be an Omega. Her whole life she had known this. Now she was _this_.

This detestable creature.

She was outside before she knew it and she was running through the garden, holding her skirts as she trampled through the daisies and the irises. She escaped over the lawn and fled toward the distant woods where she could hide herself among the dapples and cry like she did when she was just a pup. The musty scent of the earth and the cool dirt and grass around her could comfort her and the sweet twittering of the songbirds could bolster her courage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tabitha is a disaster. But she's _our_ disaster. <3 Let's hope Dimitri will be gentle...(he won't be.)


	4. Chapter 4

Dimitri was standing with his back up against the wall in a small out-of-the-way parlor that had been left for his father's use. He had papers strewn over the small writing desk off to the side of the room and even had his parchments spread out over the table that sat in front of the settee. His legs were crossed at the ankles and he was examining his nails, picking dirt out from beneath them while his father perused through his business plans and scribbled down his ideas that had sprung up from his chats with his partner.

“_A duchess,_” the Alpha muttered to himself. “A duchess and a fine, good-looking girl she is. The _heir._”

“Talking to yourself again, Father?”

“Sometimes, I think it may be the only intelligent conversation I have.”

Dimitri's lips tightened. “Somehow I doubt that. What about this duchess has you muttering all over the place? She might be short but you still can't marry her.”

“Ah but _you_ could.” He raised his finger into the air and waggled it. He barely ever made eye-contact with Dimitri. It was likely because the sight of him reminded him much too much of his late mother—the poor man still missed her greatly. “You could really get us a foothold here in England with a duchess for a wife—and a duchess who was to _inherit_, even.”

“I won't be plotting a match with you, Father. Though I might kiss her.”

He sighed, shaking his head as if there wasn't much to be done about it. His father had never been one who was heavy-handed in any sort of fashion and so this was merely just another one of his very typical reactions. His son took after his mother too much to respond well to reprimand and so he didn't bother much. With a sigh, he gathered a bunch of papers and made a show of shuffling them together and pretending to be organized before he turned around and addressed him again. “Perhaps drawing her out would not be such a terrible idea. You know these English women—terrible repressed they are.”

“Father—”

“Just don't do anything that...that...well...you know what they say about that kind of thing.”

He rolled his eyes. It wasn't as though there was that much to do about that either. The man was never really going to understand what Dimitri's life was like now—what had happened to him and what was often going through his head. There had been attempts to explain here and there but there wasn't much time when the Alpha wasn't engrossed in something completely unrelated and discussions with his only son were something of a trivial matter and not worth enough effort to bother with—at least, this was how Dimitri saw it. It was difficult to pull the man out of his work and even more difficult to get more than a half-hearted commiseration in any discussion about emotions—an aspect of his father that was decidedly inconvenient. It was times like these that Dimitri wished beyond anything that he could simply speak to his mother just _one more time._

_She would have said something so poignant. So useful._

Without another word to the man, he slipped out of the room. To bring himself back up from the mood his father had put him in, he thought cheery thoughts—most of which were about his future conquest. She was exceptionally pretty in all the best of ways. He'd already seen her affronted and offended and couldn't wait to see how flustered she might get when she was kissed or when he took liberties he was certainly not supposed to take. Could she resist him? He doubted it. Not many Alphas could resist the challenges he placed and it would grate on her all the more for knowing it. He grinned to himself as he slowly walked to his chamber.

He collected his apron from where it sat folded on the mahogany chest at the end of his bed and tossed it over his arm for the trip downstairs. He wouldn't need the rest of his get-up. He wouldn't be handling any specimens, he merely wished to go out and check on some of them again. They grew and deteriorated so quickly in some cases that to complete his notes, he checked them several times per day. It was the perfect moment now, quiet and still inside the house with the forest full of insects and birds chittering away. It was always nice here in the evenings, he thought as he made his way down toward the terrace.

_It's always nice when I can be alone. Without that sniveling piece of—_

“Mr. Mavros,” came the unnatural pitch of George Baxter—that very sniveling piece of shit Dimitri hoped to avoid. “I say, are you going out for a stroll in the garden?”

“No,” he replied simply, dodging the man when he came to block the Omega's path with his larger frame. He had changed into his dinner clothes and it seemed as if that set was even tighter than the last, the poor buttons straining hard to keep the jacket from bursting open.

“But you're headed that direction,” he replied, confused. He was taken by surprise when Dimitri had dipped to the side to avoid him and took to practically chasing him down the hall, his breaths uneven and labored despite the pace being only a tad quick. The boy wouldn't last a single day in New York, Dimitri thought.

“I am not stopping at the garden, Mr. Baxter. I assure you, I have samples I need to inspect and they are quite deep in the woods.”

“I could help.”

“You could not. Forgive me, Alpha, but there is just reason why it is mostly Betas who do the science and Alphas who do the...whatever it is you do...shouting, I suppose. It's because samples are delicate and you are...” he paused, stopping so suddenly that Mr. Baxter nearly ran into the back of him, his heavy breaths close enough to move his hair at his shoulder. He peered behind him and finished, “...not.”

Baxter did not take a prudent step backwards and instead huffed and puffed rudely in front of him, his face florid and patchy. “I...I swear to you, M-Mr. Mavros...I could be careful.”

“Perhaps you _could_ do something for me,” he supplied, feeling generous as he picked some lint away from the apron over his arm.

“Anything, Omega.”

He cast a cool glance toward him. “Fetch me a glass of water and leave it upon the table on the terrace. I will drink it upon my return and will be quite grateful for the use of it.”

His face fell. “You are so very much against my joining you...”

“An Alpha alone with me in the woods without a chaperone like your high brow debutantes? Of course I am. You understand I can't cheapen myself...” He didn't care if the Alpha understood in the slightest. He didn't care if the Alpha fell in a hole, for that matter. Without brooking argument, he left then, walking briskly out onto the terrace and giving Mrs. Witters, who was sitting on a lounge chair reading a novel, a small nod in acknowledgment before he tapped down the steps into the gravel and headed toward the lawn.

There was only the smallest of slopes to the lawn and so he could see very easily far out into the large meadow, making out a rather bright patch of light blue that was brilliantly displayed along the edge of the woods.

_Oh grand,_ he thought happily. _It's her!_ He could feel a slight bounce to his step and he was suddenly glad that he'd not given in to the temptation to change his clothes for dinner. His scent was sweet and hardy and he was absolutely soaking in it—she would smell him before she saw him most likely and no Alpha alive had ever thought his scent anything but delicious. He donned his apron and checked on the small cluster of meadow born fungi but couldn't be bothered to check his notes about them, so eager he was to tease her again.

He'd flustered her so well that—

Dimitri was close enough to her to note that he had been misguided to think she would smell him before she saw him. As it turned out, he was the one who was downwind and thus he was the one who could smell her. And it was not as pleasant a scent as he had encountered before.

_Gods, what's got her in a fuss? And what's got her so...worked up?_

He was curious and wary. An Alpha who was both aroused and frustrated was not an Alpha that one simply walked up upon. Not only that but she was sitting, her gown rumpled around her and her face in her hands. Quite upset indeed, it appeared that Lady Tabitha Baxter was having a rather difficult day.

He felt an odd little lump form at the base of his throat and wondered if perhaps he'd been too heavy-handed in his teasing. Still, he built himself up again and took another step toward her, trying not to breathe too heavily for her potent frustration was enough to make a man's eyes water. Careful in his approach, he peered down at her curiously and watched the way her shoulders shook with her quiet sobs. She was, perhaps, an odd Alpha for being so unobtrusive with her sadness. Usually an Alpha was the sort to make it everyone's business when they were upset—but this one had come all the way out here.

“Ahem,” he tried, drawing her attention easily as she startled and took her hands from her face, her reddened, wet eyes wide when she looked up at him pitifully. “I don't suppose—”

“Oh _get out of here_, would you?!” she snapped, sniffling even as she tried to pull herself together.

Dimitri looked upward toward the sky which was slowly becoming darker with clouds and pulled his mouth to the side. “I was just on my way to note some specimens before supper. Perhaps you would like to walk with me?”

“Just leave me be,” she replied pathetically, her voice small and surprising for an Alpha.

“It would be ungentlemanly to leave you to your wallowing.”

“You were quick to point out previously, _Dimitri_, that you are no gentleman,” she replied, her voice suddenly harder and much more Alpha-like.

At least, he thought, her spirits weren't overly dampened. He pulled out his handkerchief and offered it to her. “Unfortunately, I'm the only one present at the moment who might make the attempt. Now, why don't you dry your tears and we'll make a little jaunt through the woods, look at some interesting bits of fungus and then make our way back to the house?”

“And have someone accuse me of compromising you? Is this your plot to get me to marry you?” She sniffed again, blinking while more tears escaped her eyes and fell in large drops off her pretty, narrow chin.

“You can't compromise me,” he replied coolly, “I'm not a debutante and I don't give a damn about the weird things you English do to your Omegas to force them into purity for purity's sake. Walk with me, Alpha, and get ahold of yourself, if you please.”

“I can't.” She ripped his kerchief from his fingers and examined it before she delicately began to blot at her eyes and her cheeks the way a proper girl should have done.

“Why not?”

She reluctantly pulled up the hem of her skirt and he could see the barest flush that filled in the patchy redness already in her cheeks. It was revealed then that the poor girl's foot was rather stuck in a hole where the curve of her delicate ankle had been mired in a tangled and sturdy root. Her stocking was beyond help, torn to shreds with her struggle and he could see the flesh exposed had been scraped and rubbed raw, bright spots of her blood beading over her pale flesh and flowering into the fabric of her ruined stocking.

“Well what in the hell did you go and do this for?” he grumbled at her.

Her scent pricked again and a new wave of ire floated out of her. “It wasn't as though I meant to have done it! I didn't walk out here with the intent to fall into a hole!”

“As much as you look the pretty miss, you're still an Alpha,” he shot back. “Clumsy and bumbling, the lot of you.”

“You impertinent little—”

“Oh shut up,” he told her shortly, only half-enjoying her dropped jaw and affronted gasp. “Now hold still.” He moved to grab at her leg and was shocked to bits when she slapped at his hand. “What the devil, woman! Don't you want my help?!”

“No! Go get my uncle. I'll not have you touching my leg!” Her voice was filled with high emotion and somewhat shrill, a strange panic seeming to fill her.

Dimitri flinched at a cold drop on his nose and looked up at the clouds. “Alpha, it's going to rain. If you wish for me to fetch your uncle, you'll be out here weeping in a downpour before I return. Be sensible for once in your life—I'm going to touch you for your own damn good.” _And for my own damn good_, he thought to himself. It was unfortunate to find her in such dire straits but then again, he considered it rather good luck after all to have her at his mercy. She was rather pretty like this, he had to admit, all fire and brimstone.

Her brows came together in a hardy glare, her frown enough so that he thought for certain she was going to tell him to go right to the devil. But she didn't, holding her tongue until the silence became a consent and she held up her skirt just a few inches above her ankle. Her skin through her stocking was overly warm, as if she were suffering a fever and he chanced a look over at her face when he touched her, noting that her eyes were fixed on the ground nearby and not on him whatsoever. She was still overtly aroused and had been for the whole of their interaction, so aroused that she nearly smelled like she could have been in rut.

In order to get a good angle, he had to come closer to her side, his waist and hip bumping against her, much to her chagrin, and his arse nearly right in her face. If she couldn't smell him before, he thought saucily, she certainly could now. Bent down, he worked his fingers around the tough root and tugged at it, eager to release her before they both were soaked by the coming rain. He glanced back at her. “Enjoying the view, Alpha?”

“_I beg pardon?!_”

“It is only that you smell like you might have been, that's all,” he teased again.

“If you were not a guest in my uncle's house and working to aide me, I would kick you in the mouth,” was her heated reply.

“That does not seem to be something a umm...what did you say you were?”

She stared at him with such vehemence, he thought she might have been speechless for a moment. “_A marchioness._”

“Ah yes. One of those. Well it just doesn't sound _ladylike _is what I mean to say.” He moved his arm and unceremoniously grasped at her thigh through her skirt to reposition her leg, his hand accidentally brushing against _something _hidden beneath her skirts. He'd nearly forgotten what might have been concealed by her flowing gown and snatched his hand away quickly, feeling his own cheeks lighting up a bit when he grabbed at her knee instead. Unfortunately, her knee was no better for her sensibilities and she slapped his hand rather hard for his transgression.

“_What do you think you're doing?!_”

Exasperated, he looked over his shoulder again toward her, his frustrations mounting. “Listen, Tabs,” he waited through her shocked gasp again at his impertinent nickname for her, “you don't have anything to be embarrassed about. Nothing at all. In fact, most Alphas would be proud of something as impressive as _that_.”

As flushed as she was, the color seemed drain entirely out of her face at his words and she was now actually speechless. She remained that way, sitting silently until he had worked her foot out from under the rough tangle of roots, losing her little slipper to the mud at the bottom. Tenderly, he examined the joint and found it to be likely a bad sprain. The swelling was so much that he doubted she could walk on her own accord.

A cold droplet hit him again and then another, signaling that was high time they made their way back to the house though by now it was likely they would be soaked anyway. Unceremoniously, he bent over her and picked her up like an Alpha might carry a bride. At her eep he shushed her easily. “Hush, Tabby Cat, you're stubborn as a mule, I'm sure, but it's not the time to prove it to me. We're about to get soaked to the bone and there's not much to be done about it.” He was right, of course, and he was damned peevish to know that he was. By the time he made it with her in his arms back to the terrace, his black hair was flattened to his face and his neck and the rain had come down with such force as to absolutely destroy Lady Tabitha's coiffure entirely. He could only hope that the cold of the rain had served to cool her temper and her arousal, leaving her fit to be tended to.

That, it turned out, seemed to be the case and at the very least, she was no longer weeping and the precipitation had served to hide her tears, leaving Dimitri the only witness to her moment of weakness—something he thought he would be well-equipped to use to his advantage later. Oh yes. He would certainly get a kiss out of this damsel, he thought smugly.

With Tabitha safely deposited into her chamber with Maggie for a hot bath, the doctor was called for and Dimitri was praised rather highly for his role in the “rescue” of the heir to a Duke, commended for his ability to carry her all the way back to the house as though his physical strength was something of a novelty. Though he may have been lithe, he was in no way weak, boasted his father.

George, of course, was rather impish about the matter.

“So you thought nothing of being alone with her?” he asked quietly while the Omega patted his hair with a drying cloth, leaving the normally straight strands curling a bit with the water. The rest of the guests were scattered about the parlor, still chattering loudly about the event and how unfortunate Lady Tabitha had been to find herself in such a predicament, paying no attention to the rotund Alpha and the wet little Omega.

“She had her foot stuck in a hole, Alpha. What was she going to do to me? Ravish me? I imagine she was rather in the position to be ravished.” He chuckled to himself. “Now pardon me, I've got to change my clothes, I'm dripping all over the carpet.”

Though he may not have taken George all that seriously, he thought that perhaps he should make a start of it—the man was getting increasingly unsettling in his speech and mannerisms. It wasn't enough to think that he might be able to talk his way out of any situation regarding this particular Alpha—Dimitri was sly, but how far could that go to protect him?

George leaned toward him sharply, his nostrils flaring. “You smell like her.”

“I carried her to the house, Alpha, now if you please excuse me.” He walked, then, to the stairs, making certain he was not followed before he climbed them and ran into Maggie on her way down the hall. “Maggie, darling, light of my world, would you do me the greatest of favors and introduce a hoard of ants into Georgie-Dear's bed tonight?”

Maggie couldn't stifle her giggle, choosing instead to cover her mouth with her hand. “Mr. Mavros, please. Is there something _reasonable _I might do for you? I've already had the maids bring you plenty of fresh towels and I can be in your room in a moment to help you dress for dinner.”

“That would lovely. I suppose I should do something with my hair for tonight as well...and might you let them all know I'll be taking supper in my chamber?”

Maggie gave him a knowing glance. “Where will you _really _be taking your supper, Mr. Mavros?”

“In Lady Tabitha's chamber, if you please. You understand my concern. I'll have to sit with her to quell my anxieties about her condition.”

“Oh yes,” Maggie replied flatly, “I can see you're very anxious.”

He frowned at her but still kept a small smirk on his lips. “Maggie, darling...you've come to know me. I'm weak. She's very pretty.”

“Mhm.” With that, she turned around and sauntered away to fetch his towels.

Undaunted, the Omega turned about and made his way to his room, still considering all he might say to her—all he might tease her about. The ideas gave him a tingling sensation throughout his body and centered particularly in his lower belly. Lady Tabitha had already shown him everything he needed to know about her personality to give him fodder for weeks—she was vulnerable, sweet, and the perfect combination of Alpha and Omega to tempt him fully. He licked his lips, wondering just how she might taste—sweet? Spicy? Or perhaps, he thought devilishly, _somewhere in the middle?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maggie is side-eying so hard.


	5. Chapter 5

What kind of torture was it to be teased by a boy who was so unnaturally beautiful beneath all that he did to make himself garish and ugly? He was infuriating in all the ways an Omega was _not_ supposed to be—their number usually rather meek and easily led. She couldn't believe how absolutely nervy the boy was to say half the things he did to her and when she was teased even further as she lay in her bed for supper, she could hardly stand it!

The older Beta doctor had her ankle in his hands when the Omega wandered in without even so much as a knock, the boy clearly making it known to all that he was insufferable to start. It must save him much time, she thought, as he spent no great deal of it upon niceties.

“Well hello, Tabby Cat,” he greeted her with a smile, his black hair curled from the moisture that still clung to it from the rain. “I've come to join you for dinner.”

“Please leave,” she told him curtly, the doctor paying no mind to the two of them squabbling as he poked and prodded at her very gently in order to determine how terribly she'd injured herself. “I'm not decent.” It wasn't exactly a lie. She was only in her shift and her dressing gown, most of her calf bared by the doctor who had lifted her sheets.

The Omega appeared as though he hadn't heard her, dragging one of the overstuffed chairs that had been by the fireplace over to her bedside. “You can imagine,” he told her, “I've been quite overwrought about your condition. Having found you and having rescued you, I've taken an interest in your well being and how you might recover.”

“That is very kind of you but I can assure you, I need no Omega chaperone.”

“Truly? Perhaps you do, considering how neatly you'd gotten yourself stuck in a hole.”

She could feel her ire rising and felt her ears grow hot beneath the loose wet locks of her hair that had been combed out by a very patient Maggie. “Can you not see that I am tired of your meddling, Omega?”

“And can you not see that you clearly adore me?” he quickly replied, staring into her eyes expectantly. What it was that he was expecting, Tabitha surely could not know. She was shocked into silence yet again by him as she figured that the moisture still lingering over her skin would have been reduced to steam for the fire in her heart. “Do not fret, Alpha,” he continued, a broad smile over his lips which were stained from the lip paint that he had wiped off after the rain. “I will look after you. No one will bother you...excepting myself, of course.”

“You are horribly rude,” she blurted.

“Oh yes,” he told her, “I know.”

Blast him, she thought savagely. He was a troublemaker for certain and why in the world he'd taken a liking to her, she couldn't fathom. That, she corrected, was simply not true in the slightest. She knew why he was attached to her and she knew that the cause of it was in no way going to vanish overnight.

_George._

No doubt the poor boy had been hounded by this churlish cousin of hers and the boy needed a respite from the pursuit. To align himself with another Alpha was the only method by which he could guarantee his safety. Well damn him, she thought uncharitably. He was being a little nitwit and though she couldn't blame him for seeking out another Alpha's aide, she could certainly take issue with his methods.

The doctor sighed a bit. “My Lady, it appears as though you have sustained a bad sprain. You should not place weight upon the foot for several days and keep it elevated. When you do walk, you should do so carefully with some crutches I will provide. Keep it bandaged—though not overly tight. I will leave instructions with your maid.”

“Thank you, doctor,” she told him. “Any orders to keep from being annoyed to death by childish little gentlemen?”

Mavros gave a severe little sniff. “I daresay you couldn't pry me from this room if you tried.”

The Beta smiled at her in commiseration. “I apologize, my Lady, but you seem as though you've all your wits...you may need them in this case...”

“No pity for me, doctor?”

His wrinkled mouth spread further and his sparkling eyes glimmered in the dim sunlight that escaped from the dark clouds and filtered in through the window. He gave her a slight shake of his head before he got up and lifted his bag, leaving her there grumbling in her bed.

Tabitha straightened her back and looked at him, immediately irked by his placid and infuriating little grin that marked his knowledge that he'd won. “Well? If you're going to be here, you'd best make yourself useful at the very least. Do you know how to do hair?”

“Hair? No...” he replied, his brows furrowing just a little. “Aside, I'm not your servant, Tabby Cat.”

“Do _not_ call me that. If you insist upon being here, you can at least do something useful. I'd rather not look at your idiot face staring at me like you are.” She ground her teeth together. “I know George is annoying but is he so annoying that you should hide yourself where you're most a nuisance?”

His face was far flung from being anywhere near idiotic and, in fact, with his hair in gentle damp waves and his lips only just barely stained, he was ridiculously attractive in a very candid manner that was doing more to incite her ire than even his behavior could. His eyes were like deepening storm clouds and held a depth to them she had not noticed before.

_There is sadness there. A helpless vulnerability he seeks to hide with his brusqueness._

She frowned and dispelled the notion that had come to her so suddenly. He was a simple little nitwit and that's all he was. Americans were all like this—brash and unapologetic for their rudeness. He was typical, she thought callously. He was probably a wanton and a minx and not a man she was keen to know personally. Though his father may have been a man with connections in America, his son was an Omega bent upon climbing the social ladder the only way he knew how—by finding a decent marriage prospect. A Duchess would have fit the bill quite nicely.

“I don't wish to be alone with you. Should your father come through the door and insist we marry for my being alone with you, then I fear for my reputation when I inevitably tell you to go to the devil for having tried it.” She leaned over and rang the bell for someone to come bring her supper.

“I don't need to marry you.”

“Of course you do. Every Omega needs to marry the heir to a Duke. It would cement their place in society and elevate the social standing of their parents. Do you not want your father to be more successful in his business?”

“I don't care about my father's business,” he told her with a calm and serene little smile that unnerved her. Beyond this, his conversation through supper was relatively normal and even by the end, she could see his body relax in small ways until he was eating his pudding without words, brash or otherwise. In fact, she noted that there had been a decidedly comfortable silence between them for a small while until he once again called her _Tabby Cat_ before he left.

He came to visit her every day after that and never in those days did he again lose his brashness the way he had when he had sat with her for that time, keeping himself smug and impertinent every moment of their subsequent interactions. She bristled at him every time and was overjoyed by the doctor's proclamation a week later that she might put a little weight on her ankle as it would finally allow her to escape her most annoying little visitor.

Of course seeing him everyday was a bit of a chore for her sensibilities in more ways than one. Having seen him disheveled that first evening, she could not see him the same any evening since. He was beautiful and having witnessed a very brief though divine serenity in him had cause her to stare into the licking flames of the fire beyond the grate and wonder at his demeanor and, of course, all the other intriguing aspects about him that had caught her attention. Should he have dressed in fashion, he could have been quite a handsome chap but when Tabitha was alone with her thoughts, she couldn't help but disregard his clothes in their entirety—she imagined him rather naked.

Pale with his semi-long black hair hanging about his face, she imagined him over her and then, with a quick retraction, imagined him _beneath_ her. That felt a little more right in her fantasies, she thought. Nevertheless, she didn't like these fantasies if only for one reason—that annoying piece of her that insisted upon becoming engorged with blood for the simple thought of this boy. Incredibly embarrassing even when she was alone with her own thoughts, she couldn’t stand to touch it at first, refusing to acknowledge that thoughts of this rude boy were in any way acceptable.

There was an Alpha inside her. It gnawed at the chains she had placed upon it and then, in the end, gnawed upon its own leg. She dreamed of him. She dreamed that he had crept into her chamber and had placed his hand over her mouth and begged her with salacious words to take him and rut him and make him hers. She woke with her hand on herself each time, her cock throbbing in her grip while she chastised herself for having such hideous dreams and for allowing herself to be haunted by him the way she was. She could scarce look at him each time he came to her for the idea that he might see her thoughts in her eyes and know her to be lustful.

It didn't make _sense!_ How could she want him like this when she found him to be in all ways obnoxious?! He didn't give a lick about her title or her money or even his own standing in society. He told her several times he didn't care who he married, even! Americans were so odd, she thought constantly when he came to her. Perhaps he had been sent by his father but if that were the case, he wasn't doing a very decent job of romancing her.

_But it is almost as though he does not have to do any job at all for seducing me!_

After the kind Beta doctor had told her it was alright to move about on her crutches, she would seek to avoid the Omega each time he came past, even resorting to sometimes hiding within the linen closets. It wasn't a very _Alpha_ thing of her to do but then again, she wasn't very _Alpha_ to begin with. She supposed it might have been a very _Omega_ thing to do.

She was stewing over that very thing within that very linen closet as he walked by when she decided that she shouldn't be doing this anymore. She should actually be looking him right in the eye and challenging him the way he was meant to be challenged. Then perhaps he might lower his gaze and act a bit more appropriately. If she could have simply conjured up the true Alpha within her, perhaps that might take care of his incessant need to annoy her.

With this in mind, she crept from the closet, positioning her little wooden crutches so that she might carefully go down the stairs she'd seen him come up. She was intent upon getting down to the terrace to take some air and she was glad to know that he'd gone in the opposite direction. Perhaps she might have some peace outside for once.

“Tabby Cat!” she heard from behind her, the sound of his grating American tone causing a hard shell of panic to explode within her. She rushed a bit toward the stairs and, at the pivotal moment, the bottom of one crutch seemed to stick to the carpeting at the top, causing her to pitch forward sharply. A hard and unforgiving tumble down the stairs was not part of her fate, it seemed, for at her choked off scream, she found that the back of her bodice had been caught by a steady and strong hand. “_Lady Tabitha_,” he said behind her, her proper name sounding very much like a chastisement. “You're going to kill yourself with these crutches.”

“That might be preferable to having to squabble with you constantly,” she grumbled. “Pull me up, would you?”

He did, turning her to face him just at the top of the stairs. He was not boxing her in but with his height and build, she felt very much like she was trapped by his presence, her discomfort overlapped and even washed away by a sudden and insidious stirring of want for him. He was sporting a colorful bow around his neck and a perfectly outdated little sash about his waist. Upon his head was a flat, wide-brimmed hat adorned with a small ribbon with tails that trailed off one edge and his lip paint was perfectly ridiculous—a shade of pink she could not quit staring at. His tone was arrogant. “I thought you liked squabbling with me. From the way you smell each time I prick at you, you'd think you'd very much like to _prick_ at me.”

She forgot all about her resolve to meet his eyes and challenge him. She couldn't stop staring at his mouth and focusing entirely on how she would very much like to do one of two things for his impertinence: slap him, or kiss him. “I've told you a hundred times, Mr. Mavros, do _not_ speak to me thusly. I am a _Lady._”

“Pardon me, Tabby Cat, it's only that you're so sweet for an Alpha. I don't mean to make you uncomfortable...or perhaps I do. No, yes...indeed I do.”

She could feel her bottom lip tremble. “Why?”

“So that you might do something interesting. If I were to follow all of these boring rules, nothing interesting would ever happen to me...what a waste, I say.”

Confusion filled her as a frustration that tingled in her heart. “Stop saying these strange things.”

“Why should I? Why should I follow all your rules, Tabby Cat? Does everyone always do what you say?”

“Th-That's not relevant! You're improper!” The word itself conjured the impropriety of her own dreams and fantasies. She could feel herself hardening beneath her skirts, her blood rushing between her thighs to remind her of her own hypocrisy.

“I like being improper,” he told her simply. “I like saying things to you that will rile you up. I like talking to you so that you might come to know that I—”

She reached out then, cutting him off when she grasped at his face suddenly, forcing him downward to savagely press his lips against her own. Though it took only half a second for her to realize that this was _entirely_ inappropriate, it was also enough time for her to recognize that he was leaning into her, giving over to her, relaxing into her touch and even opening his mouth beneath hers in a submission she had never before known. With this relenting on his part, she could not stop. The Alpha in her would not allow her to let this Omega go without a good and proper punishment for his words.

Tabitha buried her hand in his hair, knocking his hat right off his head. It fluttered down the stairs as she backed him along the wall toward the still-open linen closet.

He kissed her back and moved with her easily, breaking off only to whisper to her without breath. “_Oh the closet, what brilliance you have, Alpha._”

She took his face and mashed it against hers again to shut him up once more, dragging him into the closet where he shut the door behind them. In the dark, it was easier. In the dark she pushed her tongue into his mouth without experience, letting him teach her the finer points of kissing with gentle sounds and a patient tongue. She could feel his hands on her waist and her ribs, his hold very light and in no way dominating like hers was. She had her fingers tangled in his hair, her other hand clenched hard over his little neck bow.

It had only seemed just. It had seemed at the time like the softest way to render him silent but in the dark of the linen closet, she had to admit to herself she was making it much more torturous than a simple slap could have been. After all, he was _so_ sweet. She could hardly stand it, the gentle caress of his lips over hers and the sensuous slide of his mouth as he placed a fire within her. She was harder than she ever thought she'd been before and he was there with her, willing and pliant and so very beautiful. He allowed her to dominate him, allowed her to tear off his bow and throw it to the ground so that she might slide her fingertips over the warm flesh of his throat and the peek of his collarbone. His scent was incredible, filled with a spice just beneath his sweetness that was driving her mad with want. She wanted more of it. She wanted to scent him and lick him and _bite him_.

Tabitha gasped suddenly, shocked by her own thought. There wasn't enough time for her to consider it fully, however, for he was pressing against her again, his hand snaking up to the back of her head to encourage her to draw from the well of him, begging soundlessly for her to press her nose against him.

_Dazzling colors. All of them. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple! Magnificent bursts of ethereal rainbows formed by the shimmer of sunlight through the rain that poured from dark clouds above. Formless, weightless, nothing but a perception of light that awed her as a child. Rare and beautiful and careless in its formation and duration—beyond human. Beyond feeling. Beyond sensation._

She could feel tears in her eyes escaping as she held him tightly and felt his hardness against her hip and pressed her own against his thigh. She breathed him as though every breath of him was her very life and she could sense nothing beyond him. Gods—was every Omega so intoxicating?

“Mmm,” she heard him groan, his breath hot against the flesh of her neck, “you smell _so good, Alpha._”

She dropped her head against his shoulder, breathless and thrumming with an unspent lust, her mind raging over a thousand thoughts—most of him. She was surprised by her own voice, husky with primal lust, and even more shocked at the words she uttered.

“_I want you, Omega._”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She fuckin' doomed. RIP Tabitha.


	6. Chapter 6

That was all Dimitri needed to hear. He kissed her again, his coaxing and tender touch bringing her to life exactly how he knew she would. She bloomed and opened, her scent filling the empty spaces and inundating him with the potency of her lust. She had been so timid and within herself. She had hidden her true self away, afraid of the implications of her own potential—she was so very typical for an Omega and yet she was an Alpha. He felt pity for her more than anything, he thought, though that may not have been fully correct. Perhaps there was something beneath it all that was more than the pity but he refused to acknowledge it, tamping it down until he didn't have to think about it anymore. Instead, he focused entirely on wordlessly coaching her kisses.

She was so innocent at the task that he felt a sting of jealousy. If only he had not lost his own innocence so soon. If only he could have been so unknowing as of now—if only he had not gotten his dreams smashed and his heart broken. Another set of thoughts were swept under the rug as he increased the pressure he placed upon her, knowing she could adapt to handle him. He savagely ravaged her mouth, holding her tightly and placing his hand to her hair, the braids now ruined by his invasive touch.

His voice was heavy and husky, whispered against her swollen lips. “I want to put you in my mouth, Alpha. I want to suck on you.”

“Why must you say such unsettling things?” she asked him, her voice breathy with want.

All he could manage in that moment was a small laugh and he dropped to his knees before her, holding her still while he pressed his face against her groin through her skirts, inhaling the musk of her.

“What are you doing?”

“Memorizing you,” he replied simply before he lifted the edge of her gown, his fingers finding the warmth of her leg through her stocking. She immediately flinched, the force of her shock so intense that he heard the shelf she leaned against crack. “Calm yourself, Alpha. I am to touch far more scandalous parts of you here and you'd rather not be caught doing something like this, would you?” He held her leg, sliding his hands around it as though worshiping it as an idol, his fingers tracing in tickling patterns over the backside of her knee.

“Omega,” she whispered, half scandalized and half incredibly aroused, “you cannot touch me like this...I...I will...”

“I believe I can. And I will.” If he could have sent her a cheeky little wink through the darkness of the linen closet, he would have. Unable to do that, he gently pinched at the flesh of her thigh before he draped himself in her skirts, ignoring her gasp of affront as he disappeared beneath them. Her scent was beautiful and concentrated. He couldn't believe that woman Alphas like her were not rustling out these fantastic scents with every movement of their gowns. Her feminine musk was distinct and he could smell the dampness just behind her very Alpha appendage. Oh he was going to have much fun with this one—he'd never had a girl Alpha before. He surged upward on his knees breathing hard as he kissed the inside of her thigh, hearing the shelving crack again, probably breaking further than it had broken before.

“Omega!” she gasped in a whisper, her hands coming to his head through her skirt, pressing on him as if trying to keep him down and away from her groin.

“Oh do try not to be so boring,” he replied, nibbling at her thigh before he shook off her hands and very gently cradled the satin flesh of her member with his fingers.

Her next gasp was even louder and he could hear that she was holding her breath.

“Tabby Cat, your reluctance is unbecoming of a grown Alpha such as yourself. Please remember to take a breath while I do this, it will enhance the pleasure most assuredly to be conscious while I suck on you.” He didn't allow her to respond before he laved the tip of her with the flat of his tongue. He could hear the wood of the shelves creak under her fingertips as she squeezed it and knew without a doubt that there would be perfect finger-marks leftover when they were finished. The thought pleased him rather greatly if he could admit it and so with much zeal, he continued to please her, filling his mouth with her. When he backed off again, he felt a little pang in his heart. “Dearest, would you mind telling me that you want me again? I know it's a bit difficult when you're overwhelmed how you are but you know...I do like a little encouragement now and again.” He waited for her response, holding her with one hand as though tempting her to reply.

“_Omega...D-Dimi..._” she breathed, slowly coming back together. “I...I...”

“You want this, don't you? You want me to put you in my mouth and suck on you until you're overcome with pleasure? That's why you've taken me into the closet, isn't it?”

“Do you insist upon making me say it?” she asked, her voice too breathless to sound peeved. “I've never felt this way before. And must you ask this of me when you're hidden beneath my skirts? How lurid this all is!”

“Tell me again that you want me and I'll make you come, Alpha. Tell me, please.”

“Yes,” she breathed, her voice trembling in the darkness. “_Yes, I want you._”

There was always a musk, of course, but Tabitha—his Tabby Cat—tasted remarkably like her bathwater this morning—rosewater and lavender mingling together and providing a pleasant foil to the spice of her. He could smell her arousal all around him and could even taste the subtle dampness of her feminine dew. She had forgone drawers this morning, much to Dimitri's surprise and when he teased her with his fingers higher up upon her thigh, he found her quite wet indeed and gaining wetness as he ventured further upward. His ears were ringing as he moved back and forth over her with his own lust and he didn't hear any protestations if she made any before he boldly slid his fingers along the slit of her.

The only thing that could cut through into his consciousness was the pain of her suddenly gripping his hair through her skirts. In retaliation, of course, he swallowed her down as far as he possibly could, bumping the back of his own throat with her broad cock. She didn't release him but similarly did not push him away and made no more motion against him even as he gently explored her, teasing her open with the tips of his fingers and toying with the delicate and sensitive lips that hid inside them her dripping femininity.

Her climax came with a decisive hitch in her breath and he was ready for it, holding her steady so that the twitching of her member might not make much of a difference in the long run. He'd backed off just enough to catch the whole of her spend in his mouth and he drank it down greedily, finding it much more palatable than any other he'd experienced. He cleared his throat daintily after the whole affair and gave her nethers on finally parting kiss before he emerged from beneath her skirts.

“Well,” he stated into the darkness, cut only by her heavy breathing, “That was absolutely lovely, wasn't it? I quite enjoyed myself. You?” He lifted his fingers and sniffed them curiously, decidedly attracted to the scent of her feminine musk.

Tabitha, the future Duke, was both breathless and speechless, fumbling around him for the doorknob and, once she'd managed it, stumbled bodily over him to escape the closet which, naturally, was rife with their mingling arousal.

_Oh I've really done it now. I've scandalized her. She wasn't certain about any of this and I've gone and done it...made her admit it and everything._

He supposed it wasn't the worst he'd ever done in his life and he got himself up to his feet, brushing himself off as she was fussing with herself and limping down the hall back toward her room. He heard her door slam and managed to wince a bit with the force of it.

_I suppose she might not talk to me for the rest of the afternoon. Perhaps even into the evening. Oh well. At least she's got a taste now. It won't be long before she yearns for more._ And if there was one thing Dimitri knew, it was that an Alpha who'd once tasted an Omega could not rest until there was another sample upon the table.

He didn't move when he noted Maggie coming up the stairs and merely shut the linen closet behind him, rubbing at his lips before he smiled at her.

“Oh don't you give me that little innocent look, Mr. Mavros,” Maggie grinned. There were linens in her arms and she bade him to move before she swung the closet door open and then stood still, blinking away the potent scent which wafted out of it. “I see you've had a decent day already. You just couldn't leave her be.”

“How could you blame me?” he asked, but it wasn't a question. “She's gorgeous.”

“You're a menace, Mr. Mavros.”

“Indeed, I should say so,” he laughed, fiddling with his little bow around his neck until it was tied just right again. “Perhaps I should walk about like this—smelling like her. I wonder if Georgie would hold it against me?”

“A _menace_,” Maggie repeated, not looking at him but storing the fresh linens in that very closet. “Leave this door cracked so it might air out.”

The rest of his afternoon went rather well as he spent most of it airing himself out like the closet, peering about in the meadows for his samples and his specimens. The one thing he thought was rather curious was that someone had made their way out to these meadows and had decided to pick some of his specimens. The rings that had been formed by the _miller_ varieties had been picked over and he was in no way mistaken, he thought pensively. He would have remembered exactly where they were, surely.

It wasn't unheard of for the house to send servants out to pick sage or thyme from the gardens but to send them all the way out here in the wilds to pick mushrooms? A curious household was one that would do something like that. He shrugged it off as he went further into the woods, finding all of his other specimens easily and noting their differences in appearance and all the other things he was wont to notice. There was a dewiness to the trees and the plants and a fox even came near to him as if to say hello before he made his way back to the house and found Mrs. Vickers picking through the garden, a basket of herbs over her arm.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Mavros,” the woman greeted, her smile wide.

“Afternoon Mrs. Vickers,” he replied easily, wandering through the garden and then over across the lawn where he found Mr. Hardrow reading a paper with his legs outstretched before him. The man could not be bothered with Dimitri most of the time and it was no surprise when he chose not to even glance up at the Omega's presence when he passed. Dimitri could not be so lucky with George, however, who seemed to be looking about at the lawn, bent over and inspecting as if looking for something. At Dimitri's approach, he stood up immediately.

“Mr. Mavros, it is lovely to run across you today. I see you're hard at work doing...whatever it is that you do.”

“I study mushrooms, Mr. Baxter. I believe we've unfortunately had this discussion before.” He gave an internal sigh.

“Right then. Well perhaps you can tell me about these over here. I've found them in the lawn.”

Dimitri glanced over toward them, barely taking a moment to see the small white spots in a ring on the lawn. “A fairy ring, Mr. Baxter?”

“Curious, isn't it?”

“Not particularly, there are plenty of different sorts of mushrooms that form them. I've seen some millers out toward the woods.”

“Millers,” he repeated, stroking his fat chin. “Interesting. You know, for all the types of mushrooms there are, I never thought to know any of their names. They were simply mold.”

“Mushrooms are not _simply_ mold.” He felt the side of his mouth tighten and the little voice inside his head remind him that he could not stand here all evening and explain the complexities of fungi with a blithering idiot. “You know what?” he said, deciding quickly, “Perhaps if we are sat next to each other for supper tonight, I can explain to you in-depth what a mushroom's purpose truly is. Perhaps you'll even enjoy such a discussion. Good day, Mr. Baxter.” With that, he ducked around the odious Alpha and made his way into the house, hoping that the faded scent of Tabitha all over him might have somehow seeped into George's olfactory sense.

By the time supper was announced, he was famished and desperate to see Tabitha again, finding himself nearly overjoyed to see her present in the drawing room when he came downstairs again. She was in a different gown than the one she wore when he'd ruined her and her back was ramrod straight, her eyes trained away from him and her posture perfect. He could barely take his eyes away from her when they were seated, her position exactly across from him.

Unfortunately, the conversations of evening didn't allow him to speak across to her and as he finished his first course, he found himself rather looking forward to the _end_ of the meal, his true hunger that of knowing how she had come to grips with their intimacy earlier in the day. How she might light just a little more of him—perhaps even all of him.

This train of thought almost kept him preoccupied enough to miss that the roast duck placed before him was stuffed with the very mushrooms he'd discovered to be missing that afternoon and a strange oddness befell him that discovery. Omegas, he knew, were prone to flights of fancy. They were dramatic and romantic and often perceived reality to be far closer to the plot of a sordid novel—and were often embarrassed by their protestations based on those odd ideations. But he couldn't help but feel a strangeness in his guts and strangeness was not something he was used to ignoring. So instead of eating what was placed in front of him, he got up, fielding the stares of the others in the party and excused himself, wandering his way into the kitchen.

“Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Mavros?” asked the butler, Grettison, who seemed rather unsettled by his curious action.

Dimitri peered up at him. “Were all the mushrooms used in the duck? Are there some left over that are not cooked?”

He put up a gloved hand to show him the way. “Anything they've got left over is here on the counter. We've not yet disposed of anything.”

“Grand.”

“Is there something wrong, Mr. Mavros?”

“I...I can't tell yet. I've got a strange feeling. It's...I suppose what you might call intuition. You know, that thing Alphas always laugh at in an Omega. When we get those...you know...those feelings.”

“I'm not certain as to your meaning, but I'll help in any way I can. I can see you're greatly disturbed.”

He heard the kitchen door open behind him and his father's voice. “Dimitri? What are you doing? You've got the whole dining room abuzz.”

“Tell them...tell them not to eat yet. For my peace of mind,” he replied without looking back, approaching the leftover mushroom caps upon the counter and picking through them with his fingers. They were mostly cut up into chunks and he gently raised one to his nose, finding the odor to be that of raw pastry dough.

_Miller..._

He picked up another and sniffed at it judiciously, placing each chunk he smelled into a pile together.

The door opened again behind him and he could hear a small murmur from another guest. “_What is he doing?_”

His father's voice sounded again, a slight bit exasperated. “Dimitri, you are to send them into a tizzy. Please stop this.”

“For my peace of mind, Father,” he asked, still not looking and still smelling each mushroom chunk, placing them into his neat pile off to the side. He had to smell each and every one. The rings that he'd found were close to the woods but were still within the grassy meadow. He'd assumed that most of the rings would be this particular genus but if he was wrong—well...

He picked up a chunk and brought it to his nose, prepared to smell again that mealy sort of scent but paused when he did not. In fact, he didn't smell anything at all.

_Oh my god._

He took several sniffs again to be sure of himself and then stared at the bottom of the cap, picking at the gills with his fingernails to judge how easily he could pull at them.

_Oh no._

Dimitri held the chunk in his palm and turned around, staring up at his father with what must have been an expression that alarmed him for he did appear alarmed indeed.

“What?” he asked, his voice hard and demanding. “What is it?”

“Tell them not to eat it. None of it. Tell them, please.”

“You're going to send them into a panic. They're already ill at ease because of your wandering in here.”

“If any of them have eaten it already, we'll need a doctor here.”

“You can't be sure.”

“I will be sure by the middle of this evening. I'll only need a bit of parchment, you see. I can take a print...”

His father closed his eyes, taking a hard breath of air. “What do you think it is?”

“Deadly. Please. Father. If they've ingested enough of it...”

His father put his hand on the door and, before pushing it open, gave a small warning to Dimitri. “If this is a mistake, Omega, by god I'll have you to blame for my investments falling through. Do you understand me?” He made no time for an argument before he walked out to the dining room and the Omega was left with the butler who appeared just as alarmed as he did.

Grettison looked at him, vexed, “You don't think it's some kind of poison...do you?”

“Muscarine. If they've ingested any of it, they'll need atropine.” He looked down at the piece of mushroom in his palm. “If I'm right, this is_ fool's funnel_. It's much like the miller but it's got no scent to it. I wouldn't be sure that it would kill anyone with a strong heart or hardy constitution but I wouldn't be greatly surprised should it fell a man like the elder Mr. Baxter or...or my father...” With that, he took a deep breath and emerged from the kitchen, finding the whole of the dining room disconcerted, their scents a mire of disgruntlement.

Mr. Vickers was standing, his hand to his chest. “Why...what are we to do? I've already eaten some! You, Omega! You're the one who's suggested this. You cannot be serious!”

Dimitri's father put out his hands. “It is likely that you'll be just fine, Mr. Vickers. Most of what Dimitri found in the kitchen was perfectly edible.”

The elder Mr. Baxter was standing up at his seat, his brows creased into a hard frown. “Young Mr. Mavros, will you please explain yourself? What are you trying to suggest here? That someone has poisoned us? That thought is absolutely ridiculous, I'll have you know. What kind of romantic murder novel are you reading to give you the idea to frighten us all this way?”

He felt a deep well of affront open like a chasm inside him and he spoke above the din of guests chattering among themselves. “I assure you, Mr. Baxter, I am not one prone to flights of fancy. Mushrooms have been my study for years.”

“And how did you know to go into the kitchen to look? Was that not a flight of fancy?”

“It was a feeling, yes. I should have known that none of you would understand my intuition on the matter—it is only that your son had noticed a ring of white mushrooms in your lawn, far closer to the house than where the millers grew and—”

“Are you trying to suggest my son has deliberately tried to poison us?”

George stood then, his girth bumping the table and nearly knocking Tabitha's glass over before she caught it calmly and took a sip from it, the only person in the room who did not seem eager to jump up and shout. “_You told me they were millers!_”

Dimitri rolled his eyes. “I told you I had seen millers in the meadow you lumbering idiot, it's nearly impossible to identify mushrooms so quickly. I hope those were not what is in our duck.”

“No,” Mrs. Vickers supplied, fanning herself with her cloth napkin, “I can tell you that they were not. None of the mushrooms came from George—they came from _me!_” Tears started to well up in her eyes. “I will feel just so terrible if I've made some kind of a mistake.”

“No one is suggesting that, dear,” Ms Witters told her, patting her shoulder to console her.

The elder Mavros turned toward Dimitri and glowered at him, clearly blaming him for the mess he'd made of supper. “Fine, Omega. If you didn't like the meal, you've gotten just what you wished for. Perhaps the cook will be gracious enough to make us something different for this course and we'll forgo the duck. This is ridiculous.”

Over the din of the crowd, Dimitri stiffened when he heard the structured sound of a calm and deeply authoritative _Alpha_ tone, its feminine quality unique and half-arousing.

_“Everyone please control yourselves.” _There was a sudden pause and Tabitha stood up gracefully to her full height, tiny and controlled. “Please sit, everyone.” They did, including Dimitri who stared at her obediently, his awe of her rather justified, he thought. “I think we ought to call for a doctor just in the off chance that Mr. Vickers has taken a bite of something he ought not to have. To consider the merits of Mr. Mavros's experience ridiculous may be premature—after all, he's spent a great portion of his life studying this very thing and if he is certain, we should give him the chance to prove himself. Not only this, but I should rather prepare for the worst and be relieved than expect the best and be devastated.” She gave a meaningful glance to Grettison. “What is it that Mr. Vickers might need?”

Dimitri replied softly, “Atropine.”

“Atropine then.” Grettison nodded to her and then was off to compose the note that would send for the doctor. “Tell the cook to save the rest of the mushrooms that were in the kitchen and give them to Mr. Mavros as he attempts to identify them. If it was all a mistake, then it was all a mistake...but if it was not, I would rather avoid the scenario altogether.”

Mr. Baxter's mouth was tight. “My niece is right. Though I don't take much stock in the intuition of Omegas, I must concede here...though should I find you've intentionally caused this disruption, young Mr. Mavros, I will be rather cross.”

His father gave him a hard glance. “Do not worry, Baxter. He's not usually like this.”

“I hope not.”

Dimitri peered down again at the bit of cap in his palm, his heart beating hard in his chest and his resolve unbroken. Someone had made a costly mistake—or someone had murder in mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, thanks for reading, here we are with Dimitri and Tabitha as the plot thickens. ;D


	7. Chapter 7

It was difficult to pinpoint just what it was that had made her defend the Omega. He was uppity but it was not with the same sort of manner as George. George was snobbish because he had money and at least a little bit of power being from a decent family. His proximity to a ducal line could possibly make him a grand catch if not merely a decent one and well he knew it, strutting about arrogant as he was. Dimitri was smug but it came from somewhere else. He'd no reason to be smug merely for having been born—it was something he earned. It was not that he was an Omega. She had ruled that out as he had stood there defiant against those who would accuse him of falsity.

_It is because he is able. He is intelligent. He has wiles and knows how to use them. He knows far more than he lets on in most company and yet has weaponized the ability of others to underestimate him._

She stared at him from across the table, her water glass again to her bottom lip, pressing upon it while she allowed her thoughts to transport her to every instance she had spoken with him. He was beautiful and yet he smothered it with terrible fashion. He was intelligent and thoughtful but he smothered that with tactless crudity. He used every bit of Omega to force everyone to see him how he wanted them to see him—garish, strong-willed, useless for marriage and too grating for conquest.

Tabitha took a hard gulp of her water, choking on it a little when she remembered the smear of his lip paint over the satin flesh of her cock. She cleared her throat and put down her glass, feeling her cheeks become pink and flushed. He had certainly fooled her. In fact, had she not seen his hidden vulnerabilities the way she had when he had come to her in her room, she likely still could have been under false impressions. Any Alpha could find themselves taken in by his guise and his manner...but Tabitha was not any Alpha. She knew what it was to feel very small. She knew what it was to feel as though every strength one had would be at the expense of oneself and at the mercy of an Alpha.

She knew what he thought—that he would not be at the mercy of anyone but himself. That he would make Alphas at _his_ mercy instead.

_He's done a damned good job of it, I'll admit,_ she thought to herself. Of course, his overt sexual nature was in all likelihood something he merely placed within himself as a manner in which he might mold Alphas to his will. She could have sighed with her relief in such a thought. If she expressed toward him that such a tack was in no way necessary for her to trust him, then perhaps she could hobble about without worry he might be lurking around the corner. She already knew of his abilities and there was certainly no need for him to seduce her now.

Then again, her traitorous brain reminded her, having his lips upon her had been such a unique experience that she was almost loathe to tell him it was of no use. Surely it was of use to her more base sensibilities—those of the _Alpha_ inside her. But to use his defenses for her own pleasure was certainly nothing she wished to entertain. Any Alpha could do that...probably _would_ do that. But Tabitha was not _any_ Alpha.

After supper, she got from the table at the same time as he did, declining to stay with the other Alphas who graciously invited her to stay for brandy despite their obvious glances toward each other suggesting they were unsure if they were polite in doing so. She walked herself into the kitchen where he was again collecting samples, placing them on a bit of parchment on the cleared countertop. She found that half of his parchment had been bleached while the other half appeared to have been soaked in ink before dried so that it was a deep black. He had placed some of the raw caps upon the line of the two colors with half of the mushroom cap upon the white and half upon the black. With each other them in place, she watched him cover each one, about five in total, with a drinking glass.

She studied him while he worked, his focus solid upon the mushrooms and not to be disturbed by her presence. He filtered through the rest of the mushroom chunks and he smelled them judiciously, sorting them again by which he determined was of one value and which he determined was of the other.

When he was finished, he placed his hands on the edge of the counter and stared down at his samples. Without looking at her, he spoke.

“I suppose you're here looking for me to thank you.”

“It would surprise me to acquire one,” she replied plainly. “What is it that you've done here?”

He paused for a moment, a befuddlement in his scent. “Well...you place the caps down and they will release their spores upon the paper. One of them will release pink spores and the other white.”

“You're certain.”

“I am certain. These two, on the bottom here, they will release white spores. These three on the top will produce pink. The white is the poison.”

“And is this the only fashion by which they can be identified?”

“They can be smelled...but that is an entirely unreasonable aspect of them to use for such a purpose.” He finally turned toward her, his expression unreadable and his scent a muddle. “Do you...do you _really_ believe me?”

Tabitha almost thought that he must not have meant to ask such a question. It was one that betrayed something about him he had clearly wished to hide. Insecurity bled out of such a query as a wound in a stuck pig. “Should I not believe you? You spend your days here wandering through the wilderness scribbling in your book when you are not pestering me. You studied extensively in America...that is what your father said, anyhow. You went to school. An Omega in the school you went to...a school for scientists...you must be brilliant. Despite...”

“Despite?” he asked, a sharpness in his scent that was quite like pain.

“Despite your eccentricities. Though I can only be of the mind that perhaps all brilliant scientists are eccentric in some way or another. Why should an Omega be any different?” She approached him, studying the way his hair fell like an exotic black curtain, a lock or two in small braids to pull it back from his face, tied in the back in a style that made him appear quite elvish. “I know you wish to be taken seriously. Why question me when I do so?”

His mouth twitched to the side and the musk in his scent was hard to ignore. “I don't...I don't know.”

“You don't get taken seriously often. Neither did I. Sometimes I think it will take quite a long time for anyone to take me seriously...as I most often thought that they would not my whole life. It is as though assuming you will never be is to make it so.” She reached up and brushed her fingers over his shoulder, sending some stray fibers from his waistcoat. “But you and I know these things...for we are small...and we have thought ourselves to be small for the whole of our lives...even if we thought one day we could break through that and for things to be different—”

“They _are_ different for you,” he told her, his eyes away from her now. “You're an Alpha. You can make things different. You're more than the rest of us.”

“Only if I believe I am. And I don't. How long do you have to wait for your spores?”

“Hours.”

“What can we do until we know?”

He lifted his shoulder. “I don't get to make those decisions. It would be nearly impossible to know if one person was given more than the rest. If one was a target or if we all were. How anyone could have known...”

A strange note rang in her mind and a panic shot through her. “Then you mean to imply that this was not an accident?”

“I...”

“You are the only man here who is known to be well-versed in mycology, Mr. Mavros. If you were to suggest that someone meant to do this, then you would be putting yourself in danger. Should someone call Scotland Yard, surely they would look most closely at _you_.” A surge of protectiveness welled up inside her and all of a sudden she felt very unsure. It would be perfect for him. To poison someone and have already gained her good graces enough to be protected by her—to play the innocent Omega who must be saved from an unkind accusation.

_Preposterous. Dimitri, though manipulative, would never have stopped himself from murdering anyone. He would have made absolutely certain that his plot would have been complete before he would allow action to save himself. Not only that but the boy is just petty—not dangerous._

She shook her head as he stared at her, almost in shock as though such a thought had never once occurred to him. “I know you're not to blame, Dimitri. You would hardly allow your plots to be discovered should you choose to murder someone. Besides, let us look at this rationally, shall we?” She stopped a moment, looking around the kitchen at the staff popping in and out. “Ehm...can your mushrooms move? Is there a way to transport them to...oh I don't know, somewhere we might chat?”

The little one seemed to snap back into himself in time to grab a relatively clean cutting board and slide his parchment, caps, and glasses onto it so that he might carry it with them carefully. As they walked, he spoke. “You're being awfully cryptic with this private talk.”

She led him into an out-of-the-way parlor and left the door open, ringing the bell so that they might get the fireplace lit and some tea delivered. “We should chat after the necessities are taken care of. I'd like to talk with you about logistics.”

He made certain the cutting board was stable upon the counter he'd set it on and let her have a rakish little grin. “Logistics? Darling what in the world would we ever need those for? We're not getting married. Unless we are, then I suppose we will have to have quite the talk.”

“Could you remain serious, you little nitwit?” She said no more until a young Omega servant was finished with the tea and the fire and had left the room. Tabitha waited until the girl was out of sight down the hall before she shut the door tight.

“Oh...I wasn't aware it was this sort of meeting,” Dimitri replied. “Shall I help you undress, my love?”

“Sit down, Omega. I wish to speak _rationally._”

“How about a deal? You speak rationally while I nibble off every bit of your clothes and make you come off again. Right in my mouth. Or perhaps I'll let you spend on my chest this time.”

She could feel her throat tightening and her face gaining a disturbing amount of blood as she turned beet red from her ears to her chest. “Mr. Mavros. Please.”

Dimitri waved his hand in the air. “Fine, fine. Get it out. We have all night, after all.”

“Who would benefit the most from murder?” She poured the tea, neglecting to hand him his cup as a slight punishment. She didn't want him to think she would simply allow for him to get close enough to touch her again. Even though she would really like to. Even though right at this moment, she was dying to know what it would feel like to have his hands on her again.

_No no no! He's an obnoxious little dandy and I don't have the patience!_

But she knew she did. She could have even more patience if it meant that she might be able to watch him put his mouth to her again. Her fingers dug into his hair, his lips soft around the girth of her. She didn't even _like_ that part of her and yet he made her feel such things that caused her to wonder if it really might not be all that terrible to have gotten it. The gentle feathering of his fingers just behind it...over the part of her that was still feminine and wanting.

She paced, refusing to look at him and ignoring the wobbling pain in her ankle. “Your father is here on business...I suppose he's a trustworthy sort of man. My uncle and your father have no bad blood between them, do they?”

“God knows. I don't think my father would come to a man's house if he didn't think he had some sort of good rapport with him.” He sipped at his tea, staring into it and giving it a good sniff first as though he might tell if it were poisoned just by doing so. “It is funny,” he chuckled, “Now that we're really talking about it, I fear I'll see possibilities for further harm around every corner.”

“How much does your father know about mushrooms?”

“He's never taken an interest. If he reads my notes, I don't know about it. Come sit down, Tabby Cat. I wish to play with you.”

“I am going to kick you in the ankles,” she said solidly, gulping at her tea while her eyes watered at the heat of it. She knew how it felt to be small and to think oneself helpless. In the face of great problems, she had shied. Not anymore. “It could not be that Mr. or Mrs. Vickers were intent upon murdering the other, could it?”

“It could, I suppose,” Dimitri mumbled into his teacup, lazing down against the side of the settee as though bored. “Old married couples do the most horribly cliché things, you know. Like try to kill each other. That's why I don't suppose I'll ever marry.”

“Is that the only reason?” she asked dryly.

“Well I also like to have fun. In closets. With...whatever you are. A...marionette.”

“_Marchioness._”

“Whatever.” He set down his delicate china cup and saucer on the nearby side table and brought himself smoothly to his feet. “Listen, Tabby Cat, I didn't allow myself to be shut away in a room alone with an Alpha to end the night without a good compromising.”

Tabitha could feel her heart pounding in her chest half with excitement and half with apprehension. “I told you, Omega—”

“Just a few hours ago you told me you wanted me. Has something changed?” He reached up to his throat, untying his bow in one fluid motion and pulling it from his throat to let it flutter to the carpet. His throat was a pale column and his scent was spiced with his lust. “You are the most scrumptious little Alpha. I think that's why I like you so much. You're small but you don't seem small. Not to me. Your confidence makes you seem like you're huge...”

“I don't feel huge,” she breathed, watching him as he unfastened his brightly colored and patterned waistcoat. “What are you doing?”

“Seducing you. Is it working?”

“No, of course it isn't. Put your clothes back on.”

“I do not quite feel like putting my clothes back on,” he explained, “It is rather warm in here, after all.” He met her eyes while he unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it from his shoulders, dropping the frills and lace to the floor. His chest was smooth and pale and he appeared delicate, his skin dotted here and there with flat, dark moles that she immediately wished to count and trace...perhaps with her tongue. “Tell me you want me, Alpha...and I will come to you. I will make you feel strong...that is what Omegas do, is it not? You don't have to be shy with me. You're an Alpha...you can have me. I'm willing. I'm not some debutante. I'm only a flesh and blood man and I will make my own decisions accordingly.”

“Y-you...you cannot expect me to take your word. Should you have designed this so that the outcome is my marriage to you—”

“Tabby, please. My father could not force your father to have you marry me. Not in a thousand years. My father is a measly little merchant compared to you and your family line. You could take me in heat and put a pup in me and drive me to the ends of the earth with your denials and still you would not be put out in anyway. I'm not afraid of you, Alpha. I'm not afraid of anything. All I want is a little less boredom in this drab hole...and I thought I'd found the perfect Alpha to help me in such a task. After all...you cannot say I'm boring, can you? You cannot say that the pleasure I can give to you isn't worth it...can you?” She saw it then, his hidden vulnerability. As though he were a child again looking for all he could reasonably ask of her—validation. Acceptance. She wanted to run to him. To hold him and comfort him and protect him.

“You don't understand.”

He appeared immediately incredulous, his brows rising in tandem. “I don't understand? I'm fairly sure that I do. You know what it's like. To be small. Not just to be small but to _feel_ small.”

Tabitha cleared her throat, immediately put upon the spot and feeling herself hardening dramatically beneath her skirts despite the serious nature of the issue. “This is entirely inappropriate...” she tried, breathless. “Oh gods...why do you have to be so...so...”

“Irresistible?”

“Obnoxious!”

He laughed, the sound sending even more blood to her nethers. She was alone with him. There was a rather soft-looking, if not worn, fur rug in front of the hearth and the Alpha inside her was _roaring_ to life, screaming at her to take him. To push him down to the fur and ravage him. Tabitha, nevertheless, was hesitant. There was more to it all than this. There was, for instance, her code of ethics.

Dimitri took a few steps toward her, stopping only inches away. “I can see you trying to come to grips with it all...it would benefit me greatly if you didn't do that. Perhaps if you touch me. Feel my warmth.”

Without even realizing that she was doing it, she was pressing her hand against his chest, the heat of his body soaking into her fingertips and her palm while she marveled at the softness of his flesh. She could hardly breathe for his scent was all around her, cascading into her senses with those brilliant colors which swirled and made her, for a moment, unsteady on her feet so that he brought his hands out to her shoulders to steady her. His touch was sending her beyond herself and she squeaked in his grasp.

“I've never met an Alpha like you...” he told her, his gray eyes shaded and betraying that same telling vulnerability.

Tabitha couldn't help it. Goddamn it, it was nature, wasn't it? She kissed him. Again. And this time, it was soft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been having one of those Novembers. The monster is back. Dark. Hazy. Watching. The Big Sad is coming.
> 
> I hope you all like this one. They're gonna -whispers- _do it._


	8. Chapter 8

“Mmmm...”she tried, her lip trembling.Her kiss was brilliantly timid at the first and he urged her forward with his own skill. He wanted her. God, he wanted her. Alarm bells were ringing in the back of his mind, warning him of his own desires conflicting with a range of emotions roiling within him. He wanted her so badly that he was going to blindly stumble all over his own feelings and yet he was willing to do so. He would do it again and again if only to feel her in his arms. He held her, thinking at the first that he was going to have to be the one to take her the rest of the way.

Shockingly, that was not the case. He discovered this as he was pressing against her, making the attempt to gently guide her to the settee where he thought he might straddle her and take her within himself as a rider. Instead, he felt her hands come to his own arms, gripping him solidly the way an Alpha might. She pushed him as she came toward him, awkwardly urging him toward the hearth where a thick bear fur lay upon the wooden floor. He snickered as she kissed him again, this time with more earnest power behind it. She was going to bed him on the floor and the savage nature of it had his blood steaming in his veins.

Her insistence was surprising, her strength inspiring and he found himself easily laid down, his back against the soft fur with a hard solidness of the floor beneath it. He was almost shocked when she began to quickly unfasten his breeches and he reached down to help her so that she would not, in her urgency, tear them. Tabitha, this  _ Marquess _ , a noblewoman who probably thought him a tramp, was nearly overcome. He could see it in the blackness of her pupils and in the careless moisture leftover on her plush lips from his kiss. She wanted him.

The revelation was welcome. He watched her as she pulled down his drawers, his own member flopping upward against his lower stomach, engorged with his blood as a mark of how much he wished her to take him. He imagined her mouth on him—her lips surrounding his length and working to fit as much as possible inside. He imagined that perhaps she might wish for him to impale her, her feminine dew coating him with her musky, female scent. The things he wished she might do for him—the things he wished might happen to him here! She examined him tentatively, her urgency washed from her when she saw him for the first time. It was a pause that was warranted, surely. The woman had probably never seen a man in such a way.

Dimitri propped himself upon his elbows, looking at her while she peered at his  _ very male _ pieces. “Is it fascinating for you, Tabby Cat? To see me like this? Do you like it? You've all my permission to touch me. Anywhere. Especially there.”

He saw her give a great, solid swallow. “I-I...I've just be struck by how...similar we are. Save, of course...you know...”

“That which makes you a woman? You are a majestic creature, you know,” he told her, his voice soft and calm. “Do you want me to undress you?”

“N-N...” She didn't finish, reaching behind herself for her ribbons. When she could not grasp them and she gasped in frustration, she further gasped at his sitting up to help her, his arms coming around her and his face so close to hers that he could smell every ounce of the rampant lust which had consumed her. He pulled at her ribbons and loosened them deftly without looking, pulling at the front of her bodice until it sagged and he could cup her small breasts in his hands. “ _ Oh! _ ” she cried, her back arching so that her breasts better filled his hands. She moaned, her head turning and tilting to the side as though she were an Omega, the motion causing Dimitri to pause for a moment in awe and arousal before he pinched at her nipples with his thumbs only to hear her quiet shriek of pleasure.

“My  _ God _ ,” he murmured, his heart tight in his chest, “You are  _ the most _ delectable Alpha I have ever beheld. He pinched at her again, smiling wide enough that his cheeks began to ache with it as he toyed with her and she let loose the most ladylike of gasps and sighs. Soon, however, he could not bear to have her as clothed as she was and he urged her gown from her body, delighted to find that she had forgone drawers yet again. For all of her urgency before, when she was naked, she was again timid and he pressed her back, awestruck another time for her reluctance to relinquish the pattern of the Omega—her head tilted and her posture demure as though she warred with her true nature.

Dimitri kissed her softly, nibbling at her bottom lip. “Do you wish for my mouth to you again, Alpha?”

“I will kiss you all down your body before I take you into my mouth, wet and hot. I'll suck on you until you spend down my throat...”

She pulled in a shuddering breath. “ _ Mavros! _ ”

“Dimitri,” he replied. “Or perhaps 'Omega.' Or even...'my pet' or 'darling.'” Tabitha returned his teases with a glare and he swooped in to kiss at her throat, gently sucking on the salty skin there before he kissed downward to her collarbone which he nipped before he descended to her breast. This he gave special attention, pulling her pink nipple into his mouth and toying with it between his teeth to the noise of her groaning cries. When he finally left it, he nuzzled her tummy with his kisses. “How did you think it was going to be, Alpha? When you thought of this?” His palm skimmed over her thigh, paying no heed to her flinch when he grasped the core of her about the base and shifted to kiss at the velvet flesh.

Her voice trembled. “I-I w-was supposed to be an Omega! You simply lay on your back and think of England...”

“England?” Dimitri asked, holding her tightly. “Well that advice is just perfect—if we name your cock 'England.' Now, be a dear and think of England.” He engulfed her then, urging his throat to relax as he took her with the intent to coat her in as much of his saliva as possible.

She let loose the most darling of sounds when she was deep in his throat and her fingers found his hair, urging him on without pushing or pulling, her nails gently scraping his scalp and providing a most wonderous sensation. He loved that. He loved it a little too much, he thought as he bobbed over her and teased the tip of her with his tongue. She was leaking just a little bit from the tip, her essence salty and musky and sending him absolutely over the moon.

It was evident that she couldn't wait for him to be finished here. She was nearly overwrought already by his actions and when he pulled away from her, there was a feral glint in her eye he hadn't noticed before. Of course, immediately after noticing, he found himself pushed savagely to the fur rug again, her hands on his chest and her full weight over him when she came between his thighs and pulled them open.

“Darling,” he tried, but stopped short at her harsh growl, her teeth flashing in the orange light of the fire. Instead, he eased himself back and peered up at her with half-lidded eyes, waiting for her to do what all Alphas thought they ought to do when the moment struck. His Tabby Cat, though, was only a little different.

She looked down between them, her heavy length next to his on his belly and she experimentally thrust against him, wetting him with his own saliva before she reached down and bumped herself against his entrance, showing no signs of tentativeness before she pushed forward.

“ _ Oh God, _ ” Dimitri groaned. It had been a while since he'd taken something this big this quickly and yet even as the small amount of discomfort came, it passed. She buried herself as deeply as she could, her scent and her eyes still uncontrolled. He'd unleashed a beast and he couldn't have been happier to have done so. Smug as he was, there was still a small amount of apprehension inside him when she began her untrained movements. His breaths were products of motion only as she slammed into him as a jackrabbit might kick, desperate for him and for every single explosion of pleasure she likely was feeling as a result of their joining. His pleasure, naturally, was secondary or even not considered at all though he surely didn't mind much. She was big enough that she was bound to strike within him a decent enough pace and, as he thought, she did that rather well despite the crude motions with which she did it.

Out of her came only a low, gasping growling and then, at the end, when she filled him to the brim with her spend, a guttural whine that was long and pretty while her eyes were hard shut and her teeth were gritted. She nearly fell upon him, her body twitching with the aftershocks of her divine pleasure while he lay with his thighs open around her, not even the slightest bit miffed that he had not yet come.

_ This was my true victory. The next victory is in teaching her the methods by which she may pleasure me. _

“Oh Tabby Cat, did you like that? Don't answer that, I know you did.” He let his fingers come to her hair. Her coiffure had flopped to the side, the pins sticking out of it at odd angles. He began to remove them one by one, letting her curls fall around her head, tickling at his shoulders as she lay atop him still, gasping for breath. She moved then, pressing her nose hard against the swoop of his shoulder and his collarbone, searching for scent wherever she might find it. “Taste me, Tabby, please.”

He was not at all certain if she was reacting to him when she opened her mouth against him, her breath hot and moist on his shoulder. He felt her teeth gently against his flesh, her lips gracelessly kissing him while she mouthed at his body. She licked and lapped him, breathing hard as her arousal spiked again. He supposed that must have been somewhat normal—an Alpha so repressed and so young must not have too long of a recovery. All at once, he was both impressed and extremely grateful for his luck in finding her. Her length was growing hard even as it had not lost the whole of its stiffness from the first.

“Alpha,” he crooned. “Please...I want to come. Might you be slow this time? Might you take me like one takes a virgin boy?”

She was giving out harsh gasps and pants, her eyes screwed shut. He knew she could hear him. He knew his words only served to excite her further. Could she control herself? Could she keep from pounding him to soreness? It might have been too much to ask.

“Will you touch me, Alpha? I've a prick that needs attention, you know. I am more than just a tight little quim.”

The last word seemed to snap her back to herself, her body flinching as a result of its lewdness. She raised herself up, a string of her saliva connecting her plush bottom lip to the base of his throat. “I...”

“You're inside me, Tabby Cat...”

She peered downward, her eyes clearing but not entirely, still clouded by her desire. She gazed at where they were joined, the whole of her member disappearing inside him, stretching him open and nestled heavy and deep. “I'm...I...” She raised her eyes back to him, a flicker of something like horror within. “I'm  _ s-sorry! _ ”

“Sorry?” he asked, feeling a bit of a panic welling. He reached up and gently held her, fearing she may withdraw. He couldn't have that at all. He wasn't finished with her and there was a deep sense that to lose her now was to lose her forever. “No, no. You're not to be sorry. This is what I wanted. This is what I thought  _ you _ wanted. Have I made some grievous error?” He flitted back through how each scene had played, wondering where in the devil he might have misinterpreted.

“This...this is what I...yes. I want...I wanted this,” she told him, a whine just behind her voice. “But I've taken you and...and...I've ruined you! Not only that but I have done so selfishly! How terrible I am...I suppose Alphas really are all like I thought they were...oh drat it all!”

“Alpha, please,” he told her calmly, quelling his panic. “I forgive you. I'm not ruined. I was already ruined. I'm a fallen boy...dirty and messy. I like it this way. I'm as happy as a clam with you between my legs. Now touch me. Please. With your hand, just like this.” He took her hand and pressed it to his aching manhood, curling her fingers around it until he was helping her to stroke him just the way he liked it. “That's just what I need, darling. Exactly...” He sighed, easing his head to the side so that she might look down over his pale throat, naked and warm in the firelight. “Now just...roll your hips. Not so hard this time but you might do it quickly so that I might feel it well.”

Her motions were still odd and disjointed a bit and so he helped her, coaching her a little as she moved. She was an eager pupil, he found, and she wordlessly followed his instructions, her body slapping against his softly this time and her cock, big as it was, rubbed him  _ just _ right. She developed a very feminine and tentative rhythm, her eyes rapt over him as he writhed and shuddered beneath her.

Oh he liked that. He liked to be watched while he took his pleasure and sounded it out. He liked to know that he was the world to one Alpha—the be-all, end-all to their life in this moment. He wanted them to have a personal stake in his euphoria for then they would always and forever consider themselves rather beholden to him for having been gifted with such emotion. Whether they were angered later by how he had manipulated them or soft to him otherwise...it was of no matter. He held control now—though a strange thought came to him as he took in her strong Alpha scent.

_ Am I really in control here? _

He wasn't certain and there was a hard anxiety that came with the revelation. He quashed it as best he could and kept his thoughts to himself, moaning them away with every gasp and sigh he emitted to keep her focus over him. It wasn't difficult. She was always looking at him, her mouth open while she panted in exertion, her hand working over him while she slapped her hips forward and back. For being such a meek little Alpha, she was certainly grasping the concept of fucking quite well.

Well enough that soon he was a sticky mess, her spend leaking out from around her, dripping from his body while he tightened in orgasm, pressing himself down around her and bringing her to spend again just minutes after her first. He shot a decent rope of his own seed against his stomach, the pearlescent liquid pooling in his shallow bellybutton.

“Well...” he panted out, his belly still twitching, “That was wonderful. A rocky start but we brought you out of that. I do like it rough every so often but perhaps with a little bit more forethought and some hair-pulling.”

“Hair-pulling?” she asked weakly, still recovering from her second climax.

“Yes, I do like that. And perhaps you put your hand around my throat next time. Though you have rather small hands...perhaps that might not work well.”

“You seem rather sure that this will be a regular occurrence.”

“Should it not be? We'll be here for a while at least, won't we? There has to be some entertainment aside from finding the collections of Chaucer and having a giggle over them. Right? I really did enjoy myself and I suspect you did too. No reason to stop.”

She withdrew from him, staring down at the way her milky spend shined over her Alpha member. “I see plenty of reasons to stop. One of them being the principle: I clearly could not control my actions.”

“Next time will be different. And if it's not, I don't mind. You've got plenty of stamina.” He casually dipped his finger into the pool of his essence that had accumulated in his bellybutton, gathering up a good bit of it onto his finger before he reached for her face. She didn't move, curiously sitting upon the fur while he dabbed at her lips with it, applying it like he might apply paint, giving her pretty mouth an opal sheen. “Now aren't you my pretty girl? My darling Marchioness.”

She regarded him with a strange expression. She was not indignant. She was not righteous. She was also not resigned...it was something else. Warmth. Acceptance. Affection just barely masked.

“Kiss me, sweet,” he whispered and exalted when she leaned toward him and pressed her wet lips to his.

His thoughts were alarming but he did not correct them or stop them or even allow himself to entertain how wrong they might have been.

_ Mine. She is mine. A Duchess to-be in all ways. My darling. My sweet. My impossible Alpha girl. Mine. Mine. Always mine. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a long day at work, came home, made pizza deviled eggs for Friendsgiving tomorrow. I can't wait to eat them.
> 
> **Pizza Deviled Eggs:**
> 
> **12 Eggs, Boiled and the cooked yolks in a separate mixing bowl.**
> 
> **Stir into the yolks:**  
1/2 cup of mayo  
1 tsp vinegar  
2 tsp yellow mustard  
2/3 cup minced raw onion  
2/3 cup minced pepperoni  
2 tsp (or to taste) McCormick's Salad Supreme Seasoning 
> 
> **Spoon yolk mixture back into the empty whites. Garnish with grated Parmesan.**


	9. Chapter 9

He was such a strange boy and yet she was such a strange girl. How could she not be? She had this thing between her legs that had, finally, actually done something she cared very little for. Still, as much as she had cared little for what it had caused her to do, she could not admit that she cared little for the act itself—she liked that very much. It was disturbing how much she liked that, actually. When she had stood up and wiped her lips on her palm, she thought perhaps she had done something terrible—to wipe his kiss from her face. She couldn’t even look at him when she had asked him if his samples were finished yet. When she had been told that they may take longer, she excused herself, putting her clothes back on so that she might change into a fresh set, her hair impossible now that he’d put his hands through it.

Back in her room, she stared into the glass at her vanity, the candlelight that cast shadows over the planes of her face betraying no significant change in her despite the alterations she clearly felt. She was by no account a virgin any longer but it was not the method by which she had thought she would lose something so dearly held. She had lost it with vigor and had not had it stolen in the least but had given it up willingly and viciously.

“I’m a selfish lover,” she murmured to the mirror. “I took him and it was…it was almost in anger. Like…anger at myself…or my body…” She hated it. She hated when she said it out loud and hated that it sounded the way it did to her own ears. Like an accusation. Tabitha had always known that Alphas were brutish and wild but finding that she was capable of that very thing—it should not have been a revelation but it was. She had taken him without thought.

Ripping herself from her reflection, she donned a fresh gown and tried to make sense of her hair. She pinned it well enough but could not get it to stay where she wanted it so she attempted to cover it up with a hat she had borrowed from Mrs. Vickers when the sun had been overly bright the other day. It was of a large enough size, it would not matter that her hair was a mess, only that it would disguise the haphazard nature of her curls. When she thought herself presentable at last, she proceeded to the same parlor she had just left, deep down hoping that she might scent the smell of the both of them again—the scent of their mutual arousal stronger than the aroma that still clung to her skin. She did admit to herself that the smell of sex with Dimitri was like an aphrodisiac on its own.

Unfortunately, of course, the boy had thrown open the doors to the small veranda off this side of the house and he was outside, leaning against the balustrade near the steps, a hand-rolled cigarette between his fingers smoldering. He snuffed it out before he flicked it casually into the garden which was wet from a passing shower.

“You didn’t go to change,” she remarked carefully.

“Why should I?” He cheekily grinned at her, his throat still bare and his shirt unbuttoned at the top, revealing an ample portion of his pale chest which set her nerves alight. She wanted to press her lips against him. She wanted to find his nipple with her tongue. She wanted to do so much more to him that was, frankly, scandalous now that she was within her right mind. But she liked it. She had liked all of it. Even—especially—the kiss at the end that was salty and sweet with his spend on her lips and in her mouth. The evidence of his pleasure was too much to resist.

“I…I don’t know…” she admitted, coming to his side. “Are your samples finished?”

“Yes. It is as I suspected.” He led her to the parchments and she found it fairly easy to determine that one of the spore samples was a light pink while the other was a distinct pure white. “The white is poison.”

“But it could have been a mistake, could it not?”

“Yes,” he breathed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it was all just an overreaction…to have considered it foul play. But I can’t help my instinct. My…_intuition_ I guess most Alphas call it.” Despite his dress and despite the fact that he had every reason in the world to be smug, she saw him draw within himself, his brows furrowing as though he were feeling unsure. “I really did have the thought that it could have been purposeful.”

“But why?”

“I suppose because I’m paranoid. I must seem mad to you to think this way but I’ve been betrayed in my life and I suppose that means I’m always looking for the worst of it.”

She moved to the stairs, looking out at the sky. There were wisps of clouds left over from the rain and the moon was shining bright and full. The air was warm and smelled like grass and the sweet tones of nature. “Hmm…isn’t it a lovely night, Omega?”

“I suppose.”

“You’ve been careless with me, you know.” She hugged herself.

“I know. And, more to the point, I don’t care how careless I’ve been.” His gray eyes flashed in the silver light of the moon. “You…you believe me, Tabitha. That means more to me than I would like to admit. You know what I am and how I am and yet you still believe me. And you let me…well…you know.”

She nodded, still at ease somehow when she watched him approach her just a step away. He looked at her silently, staring just slightly downward at her from where he stood, as though begging her silently to close the distance between them. She peered at him curiously, her hands together so that they might not shake. “How…well…how are you after all that? I…I was not very gentle.”

He snickered at her, the tension that had drawn tight now loosened considerably. “I have had far worse, Alpha. You are sweet to think of it. If I were the Duchess and you the lowly American misfit, I’d have half a mind to marry you for that sentiment alone.”

“You are not lowly,” she told him softly. “Never think it. You are impertinent, obnoxious, and crude…but you are in no way lowly, Omega.”

His eyes shined with moisture and he gave a soft little sniff. That was surely what broke her. She moved toward him but no sooner had she vacated her position, it was filled again with a solid, heart-pounding smash that had her jumping in his arms.

“_By the Devil!_” she shrieked, falling into him and gripping him tightly. The bareness of his warm chest was tight against her cheek and her mind was buzzing as he held her tight, his fingers clawing into her dress as a spike of adrenaline soured his scent.

“_Gods…_” he whispered into her hair. “_That could have been you…_”

Her brain was still buzzing with confusion and for the moment, she was loathe to move even as the pins holding her hat to her hair slipped and allowed the thing to fall to the ground. She liked the hard beat of his heart against her face and gentle warmth of him. She wanted to be against his bare chest forever. “W-what?”

“Tabitha…” he breathed, adjusting his hold on her. “You could have been killed.”

Finally, she looked about to find that a large marble planter had been dislodged from the balcony above them and had careened down to just where she had been standing near the stairs. It had missed her by mere inches. The crash was still sounding over and over in her head and the gravity of the situation surely could not have hit her harder. She peered back at him. “Dimitri…”

“I have decided something,” he replied in a low tone. “I have decided that nothing here has been incidental.”

Knowing what his next words were to be, she boldly ushered him back into the parlor, closing the doors to the terrace.

He paced before the hearth and the dwindling fire. “Nothing. Nothing has been accident. Not the mushrooms and certainly not this. It is you, Tabitha. You’re the Duke’s heir.”

“Put the rest of your clothes on. Quickly. If anyone heard that, they’ll be coming to investigate. I can’t be seen alone with you.”

“The door is open.”

“All the more reason to put yourself together,” she hissed, feeling distinctly unsettled. Could he be right? Gracious, she didn’t have time to think about this. Not right now. Not when someone was probably running to see what the commotion was at that very second. Of course just as she was about to scold him again, she didn’t have the time. Mr. Vickers was in the doorway, his face florid with exertion.

“What was that hideous racket? Has something happened? It damned near shook the whole house!” His eyes passed over Dimitri’s ruffled state as though he weren’t even looking at him, taking in Tabitha as though he were confused. “W-what’s happened, Alpha?”

She tried to quell the shaking in her hands and shoulders with a deep breath as servants began to appear around the doorway. “It seems that somehow a planter has become dislodged from the balcony handrail upstairs. One of the large marble ones.”

Dimitri raised a brow and then raised his voice. “It nearly killed her.”

There was a murmuring that spread throughout the ranks of the servants just outside the door and Mr. Vickers stood up straight and stiff while the other guests filed into the room with their own questions. “This is quite odd,” he said, “First you insist that there are poisonous mushrooms in our fare—”

“That is a provable fact,” Tabitha provided easily, gesturing to the spores upon the parchment nearby. She addressed all of the guests who had arrived, including the elder Mavros. “The Omega here has demonstrated well his ability to study mushrooms and determine their type. There _were_ poison mushrooms within the kitchen. Now, that could likely be a mistake…”

“Not when coupled with this incident,” Dimitri surged. “I suggest we call in an inspector.”

Her uncle blustered. “_An inspector?!_ How utterly ridiculous! That we send for Scotland Yard over a few odd incidents? Ridiculous!”

Dimitri did not let up. “Someone is making the attempt to do damage within your house, Mr. Baxter! T- Her Ladyship could have been killed!”

George, standing rather like a stick in the mud off to the side, spoke up, alerting everyone to his presence. “Well…if it was Tabitha who was nearly killed, perhaps it is Tabitha who might make the decision whether or not she would like to call an inspector.”

She blinked, regarding her cousin with a muddle of emotions in her heart. “Why…thank you, George. That does rather make sense, doesn’t it?”

“I thought so. If you truly believe your life is in danger, there should be no question. Do you, Tabitha?”

She looked toward Dimitri for a moment, uncertain while everyone stared at her. This had all happened so quickly, she thought she might have been at the tail end of a whirlwind. Only a few moments earlier she had been pressed against a man’s chest with a mixture of terror and sweetness roiling about her and now she was placed directly in front of the whole of guests and staff trying to determine if she felt as though someone were out to murder her—someone who was likely in this very room.

“I…” she tried, unsure. “I cannot say whether or not I feel my life is in danger. I wish to say that I don’t. But I must know, nevertheless, if the planter was in some way dislodged by nature or if such a thing was impossible excepting by human effort. Was it staged to fall? Was it tampered with? Or was it directly pushed? How can we know unless we call upon a man who can discover such a thing?”

“Scotland Yard, then?”

“I suppose we must. If it was all for naught, at least we will have some peace of mind.”

Mrs Vickers, having been silent for a time, wandered over to the doors which were closed now and stared out the panes of glass where the planter could be seen, huge shards of marble shattered and shining in the moonlight. She stared for some time, her hands to her chest.

George nodded and looked to his father. “I’ll leave it to Tabitha to send out the note. I think we should all support this decision, of course. An inspector can hardly do harm if you’ve got nothing to hide. In the meanwhile, I don’t think anyone should be wandering about alone.”

Her uncle raised a brow at his son but did not say anything more.

Mr. Mavros was a bit more bold. “Quite right. The lad’s a prudent fellow and I think we should listen. My son can be a little bold in his proclamations but the spirit is there—if this is a matter for Scotland Yard, then they should certainly be called sooner rather than later. We shouldn’t wait until someone has met an unfortunate fate.”

“Certainly not…” came the soft tone of Mrs. Vickers by the doors.

“Perhaps,” Tabitha said, keeping her voice steady even as she grappled with the idea of potentially having been murdered, “We should station trusted footmen to guard the evidence.”

“Evidence?” Mrs Witters asked. “We are calling the man to see if a crime was committed and now we are talking as though we are certain of it—which is it, my Lady?”

“One must be certain that things are not tampered with to suggest that it was an accident when it was not,” she stated patiently. “Uncle?” she asked softly, wondering if this was, indeed, the correct method, “Might you take on of the details of this? The room and balcony just above this one and the article itself should be enough.”

“Of course, Tabitha,” he replied gruffly. “You’re right. We will continue on in this fashion until the inspector arrives. I suggest now that we all simply try to relax…perhaps it is time to retire. Mr. Mavros?” The implication in his tone was clear and the American took it well.

“Yes, of course. Dimitri? It is time to retire. I’ll bring you to your room.”

The Omega let out a little sigh, his eyes low and his long dark lashes teasing Tabitha for how they fluttered when he blinked. “Yes, father.” He did not look back at Tabitha when he left, but his scent was subtly yearning.

The rest of the guests, uneasy and unsettled, began to filter out after them, eventually leaving only Tabitha and her uncle.

“I certainly hope you know what you’re doing.”

She felt her shoulders stiffen involuntarily. “What do you mean?”

“You weren’t wearing that gown for supper and you were alone with an Omega. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve got a bit of a sweet glaze over your scent and there’s only one boy it could belong to. No one else may have noticed because of the excitement but you know better than to put it past me.”

Her cheeks were hot and likely very, very pink. “Uncle, I do hope you’re not suggesting that I am capable of some kind of impropriety.”

He stared at her flatly, not a single inch of his face betraying bemusement.

Tabitha, to her credit, stared right back at him. She was good at this game. Omegas played it all the time. The first to speak was the one who relented. They were the one who lost. Alphas, she imagined, were much too prone to boisterousness to allow a silence to stretch so long.

She was right.

“Well,” he grunted. “Should your father not take kindly to the young gentleman, I suppose there’s nothing to be done about that. But I, for one, would prefer to _keep_ my business partner. So why don’t you do me a little favor and keep your clandestine affairs a little more secret?”

“There is no affair. In fact, even if there had been, it would have been plenty secret had a large marble portion of your house not nearly crushed me to death.” She could have fanned her scent into his face she was so confident in her lie. Instead, she met his eyes and jutted out her chin a bit, seeking only to needle at him in the most effective way possible in order to change the subject. “We should talk about that, of course. Do you not think that it might have occurred as a singular incident? Perhaps caused by a lacking in the home’s integrity?”

He drew up, blinking hard at the suggestion. “Integrity? What do you mean? That the house itself is…deficient? I say, girl, I’ve not neglected it so terribly. If the curtains and the carpets are faded, it is only that my funds have been redirected into investments…” He grumbled unhappily. “There has been no woman or Omega here who would care to look at the draperies and men hardly notice these things.”

“I’m certain that some of the returns that would be provided from those investments could be directed toward the manor, Uncle, but until then, is it possible at all that perhaps the structure could have been damaged somehow? A storm? I do deeply hope that something so heinous as an attempt upon my life could not happen in a decent society…thus I must place all my hope in the thought that it was a once-in-a-lifetime freak occurrence.” She rubbed her hands together, nervousness sweeping into them and tingling in her fingers. “It is only that I must hope no one could hate me so greatly as to murder me.”

_Else I must admit that perhaps my role as my father’s heir is…detrimental to my health._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't recall anyone commenting about jizz kiss last time. Jizz kiss was gross. But also I liked it. In a I-never-want-this-to-ever-happen-to-me kind of way.
> 
> Thank you everyone for liking this story. It's been a very Novembery November.


	10. Chapter 10

It was only a day or so before Dimitri found himself sitting in the drawing room with the rest of the guests, perched rudely upon the arm of a settee. The inspector had arrived, setting every one of their number on edge save, it seemed, for Tabitha who was calm, level-headed, and had not a hint of anxiety in her luscious Alpha scent. He couldn't believe how beautiful she looked. She had worn, this afternoon, a lovely dark blue gown fit for an Alpha though she had allowed Maggie to make some modifications to its accessories to make it less severe. The embroidery was a bit lighter of a color and the bits of lace at the sleeves were a tad more frothy. He liked it very much and didn't know how well he could pay attention to the serious-looking Alpha inspector when there was a woman like Tabby Cat standing so near to him.

_God, what am I? Some drooling schoolboy? She's just an Alpha._

He had to correct himself there. If she was only just some Alpha, she wouldn't be haunting him at every moment of every day. If she was just some Alpha, he wouldn't long for her after he'd already had her. He wouldn't want...dare he admit it—_more_. His heart ached.

“Good evening, everyone,” the inspector greeted as he stood in the center of the drawing room. Mrs. Vickers was the last to enter and she took a seat by the door. He gave her a curt little bow. “I am Inspector Selkirk. I've been summoned due to events which have caused some alarm. I hope to put any of your fears to rest and with that goal in mind, I suggest that should anyone have something they wish to tell me, they should do so as I take my private interviews with you. These are not optional, I will be conducting them over the course of this evening and should they go longer, tomorrow morning. I hope none of you have business elsewhere, as you will have to cancel.”

Everyone around the room looked at each other curiously, expecting perhaps some excuse to arise. None of them said a word.

The Inspector nodded. “I've been briefed a small amount on the particulars of the case and with what I've got, I'd like to speak in particular to those who've been close to the incident.” He raised his head and stared directly at Tabitha. “My Lady, if you please, could you accompany me to the parlor down the hall?” He smiled softly. “I do asked that any of you left in this room do not speak to each other about the matter at hand. You are free to roam but please do come when you are called for. Thank you.”

Of course, no sooner had the man left, Mr. Vickers sniffed. “A load of bullocks, this is.”

Mr. Baxter sighed, holding his hands behind his back as he wandered toward the window which looked out over the western part of the estate. “Is it? When I think of it, it must be strange...to find incidents like these happening in my house.”

Mrs. Witters got up and poured herself a glass of sherry. “I believe the man told us not to speak of the matter. I, for one, would rather not hear the sordid details of some would-be murderer’s mistake.”

“I will speak of whatever I wish,” Baxter replied softly. “It is my own home.” He turned and faced Dimitri suddenly. “Tell me, Omega. Tell me how you knew there would be poisonous mushrooms at supper.”

He felt all the eyes in the room come to him and his mouth twitched to the side. “I don't believe I should answer that until the inspector has queried.”

His father frowned at him. “Dimitri, answer.”

“Why should I? I answered it before...on the night in question.”

“You told us it was intuition. I don't believe any of that.”

“It was not intuition. It was...” he didn't know how to explain it. It was a hunch, certainly. It was only that if he had been wrong, there would have been no consequence but if he had been right—which he was—things could have gone much differently. “It was something I needed to be sure of. I was right, wasn't I? It was that I saw seemingly the same mushroom growing in two very different places and thought that should someone be choosing them without intimate knowledge of them, a mistake could have been made.”

“But you didn't think it was a mistake, did you?” Baxter asked, imploringly.

“I...I will not answer that.”

His father's head twitched. “Dimitri.”

“No, father. I will not answer that. You all think that somehow it was me who did it. To garner attention or to cause mischief. Perhaps you have met some very reckless Omegas in your days but to gamble with life and profound illness or death is not quite something I'm known for and not a hobby I'm keen to take up. I would prefer, in fact, that you refrain from insulting me and indeed, refrain from speaking to me at all if this is the course of your questioning.” He stood up, incensed and spreading the dank, musty scent of his displeasure about the room while he stormed from it, slamming the heavy wooden door behind him. Not knowing quite where he was going and unable to find himself comforted by the presence of his Alpha—

_Oh no. No. No. No. She is not my Alpha. I am no one's Omega. She is just an Alpha I like to play with, not mine._

He knew not where he was when he paused but he knew that he could smell Tabitha. He had come to her out of instinct alone. He was just outside the parlor door where the inspector was interviewing her and in the moment that he was there, he was alarmed to find the door opened and a very stone-faced inspector staring at him.

“Ah,” Selkirk mused, “just the boy I was about to seek out.” He addressed Tabitha who came from beside him to the door. “My Lady, I've no more need for you. Thank you for your time. If you should think of anything else, be certain to come to me right away.” His eyes then came to Dimitri and he motioned for the Omega to enter.

He did so, his gaze locking to Tabitha's as he wished suddenly that he had more time with her. More time to be naked and warm and pressed against her. He wanted her tucked into a bed with him, under heavy covers while rain poured outside. Alarmed again but this time by his own thoughts, he hurriedly moved into the room, glad to find that the fire was lit and that there were several soft-looking pillows on the settee that he could crush in his arms. He grasped one, pulling it against his chest and hugging it while he sat with this knees together, perched on the edge.

“Inspector?”

“Yes, Mr. Mavros?”

“Do you think she's beautiful?”

He did not smile, staring instead at his notes as he came to the seat across from him. “Her Ladyship is very comely.”

“I think so too.”

“You've no need to be cryptic if you've got something to say, Mavros. She's told me of your affair. You and her ladyship were together when the marble decoration was sent over the edge. Now...tell me, Omega. Was there reason for this affair or was it a naturally formed attraction?”

“Reason?” he asked, puzzled. “Is there ever reason for anything that happens in my life?”

“Who was the instigator in your attraction? Did she pursue you?”

He gave the man a sardonic expression. “Oh dear. How much did she tell you? You would not ask if you truly knew, would you? I, of course, was the instigator. I am always the instigator. That is nearly all I'm good at.” He paused with a sigh as the man scribbles some notes. “There in lies the rub, you see. I am...loud.. I am brash. I am...not a very good choice.” Another sigh. “In fact...I'm a terrible one.”

“What made you decide to seduce her?”

“Look at her,” he stated plainly, as though the man should have known just by one glance at the girl. It was so damned obvious to him why anyone would seek her. She was stunningly gorgeous, tiny, and she liked him. She did, didn't she? She respected him, she defended him, she said things she certainly would not say if she hated him—right? But he still wasn't good for her. Not for a Duchess. “Gods, Inspector...”

“Yes, Mavros?”

“Do you think she likes me?”

His brows twitched as he flipped again through his notes. “Is there reason to think that she doesn't?”

“No...it is only...well what if she likes me not for me?”

Selkirk stared straight at him, setting down his notebook before he folded his hands and placed them on his knee, leaning back and taking a more casual pose. “Mr. Mavros...is there anyone who might dislike her?”

“Tabby Cat?! Of course not. Except perhaps George...but George is obnoxious. I can't imagine George likes a great number of people at all. But I'm talking about Tabby and I,” he explained, gaining a little bit of frustration. “What if she does like me but not for me who I am now? I'm not willing to change myself, you see. I know how terrible I can be. I know how..._abrasive_ I am. That's, of course, by design. And now it's just who I am...I can't simply shed that.”

The inspector appeared nonplussed. “You think she might make an offer for you? That's quite a bold thought for a boy who's been compromised by her...one who is not nearly close to her rank. We're getting a little off topi—”

“Do you think she's so awful as the rest of them? I can't stand for that kind of slander, Mr. Selborn.”

“Selkirk.”

“She's a brilliant girl and she really does like me...or...she likes the potential me...and if I cave to the pressure...if I change...would I then reject myself? Would I then become resentful?”

The man gave a great sigh and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Perhaps the falling marble was intended for you, Mavros. What have you to say about that?”

“Me?” He scoffed, snorting through his nose. “I've reason to believe there are plenty of people who might dislike me but god knows, none of them would be bent on killing me. Can you annoy people until they should like to kill you? No no, don't answer that, we already know that it's 'yes' to that one. Really the question is whether or not they would _actually_ kill you over how crude you are.”

“I understand that there were some poisonous mushrooms found in the supper from the other night. You were the one who found them...you also seem to be the only one with intimate knowledge of mushroom types.”

“I am the only one with _obvious_ intimate knowledge of mushroom types. Why the hell would I put poison into food without the intention to follow through?”

“Remorse?”

“Do you think I'm the sort of boy who feels remorse?”

Selkirk finally let himself smile a little. “I think you are. Considering that you seem also to be the sort of boy who pines for a girl far above his station. Do you consider yourself whimsical like so many Omegas, Mavros?”

“Whimsical? Me?”

“Yes. You seem keen to fancy yourself a Duke...do you think yourself the subject of someone's jealousy? Or perhaps it is you who is jealous? Perhaps your Tabby Cat has suggested she could not be yours and you enlisted someone to aid you in a murder plot? Perhaps you misjudged where the planter should fall.”

He drew up, ire forming a tacky, sticky must to his scent. “_I beg your pardon?_”

Selkirk made a distinctive little “hmph” to his reaction. “Genuine indignant fury...you're not a very good liar when you're angry...at least you've got that going for you. Fear not, Mavros, I know it wasn't you involved with the marble. But the mushrooms...”

He sniffed. “Theoretically, the mushroom criminal should be the same who attempted murder upon my Tabby Cat.”

“And yet they are far different methods, suggesting two perpetrators.”

“Or one crafty one,” he shot back, miffed that he was no longer discussing Tabby. “Tell me, Seldark—”

“Selkirk.”

“Do you think me capable of change? I'm unsure.”

“Then let's chat about something you're sure about.”

He hugged the pillow harder, bowing his head so that his eyes were hidden by it, his chin nearly to his chest. “Inspector, you're good at observing people, aren't you? Might you tell me how she was when she spoke of me? Did her scent soften? Did her voice sound wistful? Did she speak of me warmly or fondly? Did her sweet face become pink for her memories of me?”

The Alpha didn't speak for a few moments and then, under his breath, whispered, “_For the love of Christ..._” After a clearing of his throat, he replied, “Omega, please think. Has anyone here been angry with anyone else? Have there been tensions here? Financial tensions? Emotions running high? What the hell is going on in this house?”

He lifted his face. “I've seduced a Marchioness. That's all I know. And do you know, I'd like to keep her about, if you wouldn't mind. Don't tell anyone we're having an affair. If you do, I might be forced to kick you in the shin.”

He broke into a smile again and even gave an incredulous laugh before he rubbed at his face with his hand. “Oh God...alright. Mavros...why don't you have a good walk or something? You can think about all this and if you come up with something else you need to tell me, you can come to me later.”

“Fine,” he replied impishly, throwing down the pillow. “If you won't help me, I'll help myself.”

The Alpha rolled his eyes and stood, walking him to the door and letting him out. “Good day, Mr. Mavros.”

“Good day, Selkirk.”

“Sel—oh!” He grumbled, shutting the door at Dimitri's back.

_Well he was no help at all!_

He tapped the toe of his little boot on the carpet and then headed off in the direction of the garden. The sun was still shining and the day was a little cooler, the grass still damp from morning showers. Perhaps Tabby would be down in the garden. Perhaps she would be looking out over the late blooming flowers and thinking about their beautiful night together. It had been quite a night. He, of course, had been keen to make another one but they had been staying apart due almost entirely to prudence. Everyone was on high-alert for oddities and Dimitri got the distinct impression that perhaps there was at least one of their number who had connected the two of them together as a couple already. Should Tabitha be working to contain any rumor that might spread, he certainly did not wish to sabotage the effort. However, now, he was feeling rather piqued about the ordeal. He needed her calming scent.

As he suspected, she was near the garden, standing just outside the french doors, her slippers in a dry spot of the stone while she held her thick woolen shawl around her shoulders. She was wearing straight, dark feathers in her hair which were much more becoming than the hat she had worn the other evening and her throat was more exposed by this gown, the cut of it giving him a decent peek of her fine, soft skin he would love to kiss.

“Dimitri,” she greeted kindly.

“My Lady,” he tried, tempering his more base impulse to call her Tabby. “I...”

“I'm sorry to have betrayed us to the inspector...but if he should be able to find a killer...he needs to know the truth.”

He nodded, swallowing his immediate replies. “I know.”

“You understand then?”

“Yes. I didn't come to reprimand you. I just...wanted to see you.”

There was a long, drawn-out bit of awkwardness between them in which he was filtering through a thousand things he could have said and then ultimately didn't. Was this what it was like to begin altering himself for her? Confusion reigned and he scratched the back of his head.

_Gods, how many mistakes am I going to make with her? How many will she allow?_

He frowned at himself.

_Mistakes?_

“Mistakes...” he murmured to himself, staring out over the wet garden before he looked up and down over Tabitha's gown. “Your dress, Alpha...”

“Hmm? What about it?”

“The one you wore after...after we...”

“The light gray one?”

He nodded. “It bore a slight resemblance to another dress I saw that day. It was not striking but it was there...and that hat. It...it was not yours, was it?”

“Well, no. I borrowed it from Mrs. Vickers.”

“_Mistakes._” He gasped suddenly, staring into her eyes while everything jumbled together in his mind and then fell into place. He reached out to her, his vision beginning to cloud.

“Dimitri?” she asked, reaching for his elbow as though to bolster him. “Are you alright? Should I call for someone?”

“No. No...I...it is only that I think _I know who's done it._”

“For god's sake, Omega...do you really?”

He explained fitfully, pacing over the stone of the garden terrace until he was finished and when he looked up at her, she was pinching her chin in thought, looking like the angel she always was. “Well?” he asked, his guts roiling.

“We'll go to Selkirk. Now.”

They bumbled off, knocking upon the parlor door with such force that it opened immediately.

“Hello my Lady, Mr. Mavros...you've caught me between interviews...I've gotten some tea. Would you like some?”

“No—” Dimitri tried but was cut off by a calm Tabitha.

“Yes, Inspector, I think tea would help calm our nerves.” She ushered the Omega inside and made certain that the door was shut, leading him over to the settee and sitting him down while she sat beside him, fluffing out her skirts so that they might lay perfectly. “Inspector, you must know that we are here because there is a matter of great import that we've discovered.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yes. The matter of my gown and my hat.”

The stately man poured them tea and then picked up his notebook. “Your gown and your hat?”

“After Dimitri and I were...together...the other night, I went to my room to change. When I came back, I was wearing a light gray gown. One that no debutante Omega might wear but one that Maggie had found for me and had spruced up...it was one that had been worn by an Omega who had been married before. It is the sort of color no decent debutante would bother with for it is not eye-catching in the least, you see. I had also borrowed a hat from one of the other women.”

Selkirk nodded, staring at her intently. “I see what you're saying. Should an assailant look upon you from above, they wouldn't not immediately have known it was you.” He nodded, his mouth easing into a grin. “Clever girl.”

“Clever _Omega_,” she corrected, “_Dimitri_ is the one who thought of it.”

Selkirk blinked and moved to look at him directly. “I say. You're full of surprises aren't you, little one?”

He sniffed. “Well I'll do you one better, Inspector. I will tell you who's to blame!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger.
> 
> I forgot yesterday was Friday. That can happen sometimes.


	11. Chapter 11

_“You see, Tabby Cat here was never the intended victim. It was poor Mrs. Vickers who was the lady in question. It would never occur to one of these guests that Tabby would ever budge against her morals enough to be alone with me...and it was also the hat...and the gown. Mrs. Vickers, after all, had a similar color gown and that was her very hat that Tabby had borrowed! You see, it all comes together. It struck me that Mrs. Witters had said that the would-be killer had made a mistake. Well, how the hell would she have known that they had made a mistake if _she_ were not the person who'd done it?!”_

Tabitha's cheeks were warm as she recalled just how brilliant Dimitri had sounded when he'd told the inspector everything. As it turned out, it _had_ been Mrs. Witters who had sent the pot tumbling from the balcony and indeed it really had been Mrs. Vickers who'd been the intended victim. Not only that, but he who had protested too much at the poisoned supper had been the one who had ultimately done the poisoning—his own wife the one with the poison in her dish by his own admission when properly pressured by the inspector to confess.

Of course, through the course of all of this, Tabby hadn't managed to keep the secret of her lover—her uncle knew. In one sense, she was rather relieved to have come to this point. At least _someone_ knew about it. At least she could speak to someone about it and not hold it all within herself. Already he'd passed her commiserating glances when the elder Mavros said something about Dimitri's “prospects.”

She _was_ Dimitri's prospect, she supposed. But, alarmingly, the boy had withdrawn. Not entirely, of course, but she was half expecting to see him coming around a corner when she woke and came to breakfast, eager to pull her into a closet for a sample of his skillful lips again.

But he wasn't behind any corners. He did kiss her again. It wasn't as though he were drawn completely away from her. As though the whole murder business had made him come to dislike her. She did sometimes think that perhaps he had gotten just what he wanted and that was the end of it but then, every time she thought of that, he would give her a subtle, coy glance and she was back to thinking about what the hell he was doing to her. His kisses were no longer punchy and neither was his speech. He didn't tease her anymore.

It was nothing short of discouraging. Despite all the headaches he'd brought to her, she couldn't help but feel rather special having weathered them and still falling into his arms at the end. Now, it was like he was buttoned up, biting his bottom lip as though he were afraid to speak to her before he distracted himself with kissing her. He no longer ambushed her but politely sent her little coded notes to meet in out of the way parlors or in the library when everyone else was asleep.

They had not made love again but he had touched her tenderly between her legs and brought her to orgasm many times, even going so far as to dip his fingers inside her, pressing against the interior of her until she had squealed out in pleasure. As sweet as he was, it was disconcerting not to hear his saucy quips before he kissed her and she was beginning to think that perhaps this was a matter of _winding down._

“Tabitha?”

Her uncle's voice knocked her clear out of her thoughts, sending them crashing down around her while she stared down at the embroidery in her lap. With the Vickers and Mrs. Witters gone, there weren't very many people to chat with aside from the captain who often, in the middle of his sea stories, would fall asleep and begin snoring in his seat. He had done so an untold number of minutes (or hours?) ago and she had certainly not been getting any of her work done. In fact, she had dropped her needle some time ago and it was dangling somewhere in the folds of her skirt. Rallying, she lifted her head to him.

“Yes, uncle?”

“Are you busy? Mr. Mavros has gone into the village for a few errands and I've need of an Alpha to assist me.”

She looked down at her very Omega-like preoccupation and sought to collect her needle. “Me?”

He gave a pointed look to the captain who was soundly asleep nearby. “I've a hunting cabin that could use a bit of a refurbishing. I thought you might have a more delicate touch than the Omegas...I was going to ask for advice from the others, but...”

“Oh...” She poked her found needle into the fabric and set the project aside, standing up and brushing off her skirts. “If you think I can be of any help, of course I shall. Do you have swatches?”

“I'm not even quite at that point yet. Perhaps you'd like to picnic with me and take a look at the old thing. It might not even be worth keeping at this point. I think there's a rather large hole in the wall though I can't imagine what's caused it. Some kind of animal, I suppose.”

“It must be quite the rustic little cabin,” she mused.

“Oh yes. It is nothing like some lordly hunting cabins. Those men have got much more time and money to invest in their hobbies than I have. But if I should be entertaining guests and they should like to hunt or...well...perhaps if they should like somewhere to tryst...” He flashed a glance at her, as though judging her reaction to such a statement.

Her response was merely a flush over her cheeks, warm and warranted. “I couldn't imagine that anyone would wish to tryst so far out in the woods.” That was a bald-faced lie though it was something that an Omega might have said so she stuck by it, refusing to meet his gaze as he led her down to the kitchens. There was already a basket prepared for the both of them and her uncle grabbed it.

“Do you need walking boots?”

“These will do,” she replied. In fact, she had donned them specifically so that she might go walking later in the afternoon. “Are you very certain you would not rather a man look at your cabin? My taste is...well it's not very Alpha-like at all.”

“That's what I was hoping for, actually. Remember, I did ask for a softer take. I wouldn't like for my hunting cabin to be all hard edges, you see, and there isn't a wealth of feminine Alphas to ask for advice...of course, I was hoping that one day I might be able to host one of them, for there seem to be more of them among the ton recently. Wouldn't want to miss out on connections, would we?”

“I suppose not. But uncle...should you not focus more heavily upon a more updated style to your...erm...main house?” She realized halfway through that such a question might be considered rude since it seemed as though the man might have had limited funds, but perhaps he was looking at some sort of windfall from the associations he'd made with Mr. Mavros. She couldn't know, after all, as she wasn't involved.

“I think you'll find that having a decent hunting cabin can be a boon to business, as odious as that sounds,” he told her as they walked across the lawn. “If you can't show a man a good time when he's come to visit you, he's going to be less likely to allow you into his good investments.”

She felt her mouth tighten as she walked. “Forgive me, uncle. I certainly don't know anything about how men should go about their business. It is far out of my depth. I suppose I must learn somehow the ways a man should go about procuring good investments but I haven't come so far in my learning. In fact, there seem to be many things about being an Alpha and a Duke I am going to have to learn. One of which is coming to terms with...” She trailed off, uncertain of how to proceed.

“With?” he asked, curiously as he paused for a moment to take a few breaths. He was certainly not in the same sort of shape as she was and was winded easier.

“With...well...that which makes me an Alpha.”

He stared at her with a soft sort of alarm. “You...you mean to say your...oh... Well, my Lady, far be it from me to discuss delicate matters with...” He drew his mouth to the side in thought and then shook his head. “You know...it is difficult for me to think of you as an Alpha same as I am. I have come to know you so far as a woman who is more soft and vulnerable like an Omega and now you've taken us all by surprise and you've taken yourself by surprise as well, which is its own issue. I have discussed many an indelicate thing with many an Alpha but your countenance arrests me. I find it...distasteful to think of discussing these things with you.”

“And yet I should beg you to have your word with me,” she replied pleadingly. “I hate this thing. This...” she choked out the word, “...penis.”

He sputtered out a laugh. “Oh gods. Please, my Lady, you will send me into fits. What is it that you could hate about it? Obviously you've learned well how to use it. I imagine the boy has been very decent at showing you.”

She felt her face heat again and this time it was with intensity. “Yes. That is...I know what it can do but...I cannot say I feel entirely comfortable with it. I fear that it has become symbolic for me of a lack of control over my own emotions and my reactions to things. I find myself quite beastly. I...” she stopped, glancing at him and then glancing away, ashamed of herself, “I daresay, uncle, I am not a very selfless lover. How am I to maintain my control when it wants so badly for me to become rampant and vicious?”

“Rampant and vicious,” he mused as though he couldn't believe such a thing. He looked around them for a time and then began walking again while he addressed her. “I think I know your plight, my Lady. When I was a fresh Alpha, I had much the same problems you're having now. My instinct was too much to handle. It is not something that has only happened to you because you were not expecting your presentation and it is nothing evil about you that has come loose. It is only that which has driven our species forward through the years. Not only this but you're quite lucky.”

“Lucky?” she asked, unsure how in the world that could be. If she was truly lucky, she never would have presented this way at all. If she were really lucky, she would have found herself a charming Alpha husband who could control himself around her and give her the sort of pleasure she was supposed to experience.

“Of course you're lucky,” he chuckled. “It is only the luckiest Alphas who come across a very giving and generous Omega who can show them just what they are to do when they find their mate. An Alpha who has not been thoroughly coached before their marriage is one who often bumbles up their mating to the point where their spouse cannot think to try again.”

She blinked. “Oh...I...I had not considered...”

“That it might occur that way?”

“That I might find a different Omega.”

He paused again, this time at the edge of the woods and sharply looked back at her, his face flushed. “You can't be serious.”

“What do you mean?”

He pulled a blanket out of the basket he carried and set it down on a relatively flat piece of ground. “You cannot think that you would marry him. You were bred for better.”

She stared at him, shocked. “Bred for better? Well of course I was. I am a Duke's daughter. I was bred to marry a man with a title.”

“And now that you are a Marchioness, you are meant to marry an Omega whose family line holds a title.” His voice was clipped and cold. “Dimitri Mavros is not the kind of boy you should consider for mating. He is the sort of boy you bed until you are bored.”

A hot lump of indignant frustration lodged in her throat. “W-what?”

“You heard me,” he told her, settling himself down upon the blanket and passing her a decently-sized stuffed cabbage that had been wrapped in paper. 

As they had understandably lost their previous cook due to the unfortunate incident—she had chosen to retire to her sister's country house—they had been only able to find a woman from one of the more eastern countries who made rather interesting dishes. Tabitha found hers to be wrapped rather loosely which was uncharacteristic of the woman and she supposed that the poor dear must have been very put out to have been notified of a picnic. Her uncle must not have given much time for her to ready it. Still, it was delicious though she could hardly taste it as distracted as her uncle's statement had made her.

Dimitri was, in most ways, a boy she could imagine finding adventure with. Was there really any good reason not to marry a boy who had made her understand herself a bit better than she had before? A boy who could allow herself comfort in her own body at least for a little while? He had shown her what it meant to be an Alpha so far—why should he stop now? Though, she lamented, he probably didn't wish to marry her anyhow. After all, he had withdrawn so far...

“Uncle, I think I do wish to marry him,” she stated into the air which was filled with the sound of twittering birds and singing insects.

“Your parents would never allow it,” he replied dismissively. “Your father in particular would likely send the boy packing should you even think to present the idea.”

“Why? He is good enough for me now, why should he not be good enough for me as a mate?”

“Well to be frank, dear girl, the boy is a menace. Look at him. What sort of derision would you face for his sense of fashion alone?”

She frowned. “His mind is much more valuable than his fashion, surely. I don't recall anyone caring a whit about the oddity of some of the Alphas who have brilliant minds.”

“He's not an Alpha,” he reminded her. “Eat your lunch, we will have plenty to do when we get to the cabin. I think you need a good distraction.”

“I'm distracted from that now. I'm worried, actually. I think I...” she frowned at him, her brows furrowing tightly. “Well, uncle, I don't think I can heed your advice at all. Perhaps it is the Alpha in me but I simply cannot fathom letting him go. He's a brilliant boy and he...he knows me. He knows me better than I know me. Perhaps because he is an Omega and he's had...experience. But I'm afraid that my love for him—”

“Your love for him? Gods, girl.” He huffed.

She stuffed the rest of her cabbage into her mouth and chewed it if only to keep herself from saying something utterly foolish. There was nothing that she was sure of more but it was difficult to make older people believe such a thing. When younger people spoke, they were so often told they were being impertinent and absurd. How was one to avoid such a thing? She supposed it didn't matter in the least anyhow—she was an Alpha. She didn't have to listen to him or anyone else when it came to her life and her mate. She supposed that the only people whose opinions mattered in the least were her father and Dimitri himself.

She swallowed, clearing her throat and drinking down some of the tea her uncle had brought in a thermos. He was watching her intently while he ate his own lunch, probably waiting for her to rise to the occasion with a cutting retort. Instead, she stared at him with her brows still furrowed.

“Alright then,” he said easily, standing up and helping her to get up. He folded and put away the blanket, carrying the now mostly empty basket with them into the woods which were cooler for the lack of sunlight. Dapples shined over the forest floor and soon he had led her down a thin deer path which was cut out in places to lead right to the door of a charming little cottage that appeared to be in rather decent shape.

Inside, nevertheless, was a bit of a mess. She could see places where animals had come through, a hole just big enough for a dog or other similarly-sized creature to fit through was present at the bottom of the western wall next to the woodstove. For its rustic and neglected nature, the inside was rather well-taken care of, she thought, the notion striking her as strangely odd.

Her uncle set the basket down on the table that sat before the stove, next to it a teapot and a cup on a saucer with some damp tea leaves at the bottom. He looked around. “No one's been here for a little while so don't mind the dust.

“No one's been here?” she asked, eying the teacup and pressing the backs of her fingers against the pot, finding it warm.

“No,” he smiled. “Which will make it the most perfect spot for me.”

“Are you planning on a tryst?” she asked, still puzzling over the warm teapot and the still-damp tea leaves. Someone had been here. She glanced at the bed which was not obviously slept-in but made up as though someone was careful about their morning routines. There was no dust upon the coverlet but her uncle didn't seem to notice—men never did seem to notice such trifles.

“No...” he mused, drawing her attention again as he faced her, a queer sort of quality to his smile. “I'm planning a murder.”

“A murder?” she asked, inexplicable moisture coming to her eyes which she blinked away. An odd adrenaline began to thud in her chest and she could barely breathe out her next words.

“Yes, darling Alpha,” he replied. “And I've already gotten away with it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AWWWWW SHEEEEEEIIIT.


	12. Chapter 12

There were tears in her eyes. She didn't know why in the world she would be crying—she hadn't felt like crying for some time, actually, and she supposed that was little more than just another symptom of having become an Alpha. She didn't have the urge to cry because she now had the means to correct whatever had occurred to provide it. Uncertainty in this moment may have been the catalyst. He was staring at her in such a strange and unhinged sort of manner that she wasn't at all sure as to his meaning.

She wiped at her eyes. “I...I don't understand. Why in the world would you plan a murder? What do you mean? Explain.” A hot bubble of something was drawing her strength, focusing it and keeping it within her core. Frustration, probably. Something lingering beneath the surface that was warning her of imminent danger.

_But he's my uncle. Why would he wish to hurt me?_

“Tabitha,” he sighed, still smiling. “You don't have to worry about anything anymore.”

She was staring at him, still wiping at her eyes as they leaked tears. She could feel a prickling over her skin as heat suffused her flesh and she began to sweat lightly.

“You see, you've been my lovely niece for so long and you would have made a wonderful Omega. Beautiful. Stunning. You would have suffused the family with wealth if you made a decent match and you would have made my brother proud to have you for a daughter. But you know nothing about becoming what you were never meant to be. You don't have a place as a duchess, do you understand?”

“No...I don't. I am being taught...I have a tutor...”

“It's not about having a tutor, you stupid girl.”

She gasped. He'd never used such language with her before. He had always been so kind and so safe—what had changed? Was it really just her presentation? “Uncle, what are you talking about? You're scaring me...”

“You weren't supposed to be an Alpha,” he cried out, waggling his finger at her. “You were small. You were a small child and you were a small young woman. There was nothing in the family history suggesting that any girl born to our line was to become an Alpha. There hasn't been an Alpha girl in generations. Not even in your mother's line, to my knowledge was there an Alpha girl. When your mother couldn't have any more children, naturally we all assumed that George would find the title fit well to him and I, of course, raised him knowing that it would pass to him.”

She took in a startled breath through her nose. “You...you can't mean to murder _me._”

“I already have,” he stated simply. “Not only that but I've already determined who is to blame for it.”

“You already have...?” she pressed her hand to her throat in disbelief. He couldn't have, could he?

“In fact, I've used the very same mushrooms that Mr. Vickers used to try to poison his wife. Of course my actions might cast a little doubt upon that attempt but no matter. Your lover has poisoned you, Tabitha. Or—that is what it will appear to be. Unfortunately, I believe my business with Mr. Mavros will have to be sacrificed as I am certain he will be rather bitter about his son having been hanged for the murder of my niece but it is but a small drop should George inherit his proper title. We will have all the money we need and we will have the nobility...it is perfect.”

“Perfect?” She thought back to her poorly wrapped cabbage. He'd poisoned her with those damned mushrooms. Tabitha cursed inwardly, completely incensed at herself that she could allow this to happen. No. She wasn't incensed at _herself._ She was incensed at _him._ She balled her fists at her sides. “No. I don't think so.”

“You don't think so? Girl, you haven't got a choice in the matter. You're about to succumb to a hideous poison.”

She could feel her stomach roiling, aching a bit even as he said it. She could feel herself beginning to perspire more heavily. Extra saliva was forming in her mouth and she swallowed it with a gulp. “You're not going to hurt him.”

“I'm not going to hurt him,” he snickered. “The law is going to hang him. Not that it will much matter to you, Alpha. You won't be around to see it. Don't worry. He'll join you soon enough, no doubt. That is, unless they won't hang an Omega. They do seem to balk at that sometimes. Perhaps he will simply be locked up in some asylum. No matter, he'll be dead from consumption before the year's end if that's the case.”

She shook her head indignantly, her shock apparent in her souring scent. “When did you become so callous, uncle? When did you become this monster?”

He pointed his finger at her again, spittle flying from his lips with accusation. “_When you did not present properly!_”

“I can't let you do this.”

“What choice do you have?” he spat, his voice vicious and his eyes crazed. He looked every bit the madman he sounded and nothing like the man she remembered from her childhood. He used to be so giving, so kind. She supposed that when things had been expected for such a long time and then unforeseen events occurred...it was enough to change a man.

She walked straight up to him and slapped him hard across the face. When he rounded back upon her, she caught his hands in hers and was shocked to find that he was utilizing all of his strength against her. Despite stumbling back at first, she summoned her courage and then the strength of her soul and pushed back. She pushed until she thought she might give out against his superior strength and then, at the very last moment, there was something within her that surged forward.

_Is this what it really means to be an Alpha?_

Despite her small size, she was younger than he was. She was more powerful. She recognized that now. She saw it in how his knees buckled at the squeeze of her hands. She witnessed it in the way his whole form was pressed back by just her force against his—she was _more_ now than she ever was before. Her strength was that which could send a grown man to his knees and it did now as she forced him down.

Tabitha was vaguely aware that she was giving out a bizarre and inhuman growling from the back of her throat, the animal inside her clawing its way out as she threw her uncle down to the ground. In her mind, savage thoughts flowed and boiled up and over.

_No one will hurt him. No one will touch him. He's mine. You can't harm him. I'll kill you first._

She stood over him, looming and panting while he cowered. “I don't care who you are,” she snarled, her hands like claws at her sides. “I'll destroy you.”

“You're already dead!” he shouted up at her. Still, there was fear in his eyes. “Even if you kill me, you'll die!”

A tiny voice whispered inside her.

_He's right. And you'll never have told Dimitri that you love him. You'll never have told him that you wanted to marry him._

A hard weight hit her in the chest. She had to tell him. She couldn't let this horrible grief destroy her before the end of her life. She had to tell him that she wished for him to be her mate. Even if it were never to happen, even if she were to die in his arms—she couldn't bear the thought that she could be gone from this earth without letting him know what he meant to her.

“To the Devil with you then,” she told him, spitting on him with her copious saliva before she turned about. It must have been Alpha arrogance to do so, she thought as she immediately heard him scuffle to get up, throwing himself bodily at her and missing by just inches as she ducked quickly and dove toward the small hole in the western wall. He was scrambling about on the floor, reaching out for her skirts, grabbing huge fistfuls of the soft muslin in his attempt to keep her inside the cottage. Without thinking, she screamed long and loud, the warbling notes of high pitched _Alpha_ tones causing the man to cry out and reach to cover his ears. He still managed to rip the hem from her skirt as she squeezed through the hole, kicking at his hands and his face. The sound of rending fabric wasn't enough to stop her and she merely pulled and yanked until she was free, the tatters of her dress meaning nothing to her as she flew toward the bright sun of the open meadow.

Of course, she didn't quite make it when she was caught.

“Unhand me, you brute!” she cried, stomping the man's foot soundly.

“Oh _devil!_” she heard and it was _not_ the voice of her uncle.

For a moment she ceased her struggle and then broke away, finding herself facing a rather haggard-looking inspector who was sporting a bit of a growth on his chin, a clear surprise in his expression at seeing her there. “In—Inspector?!”

“My Lady...I heard voices...you were screaming and I assume from your appearance, you're not at all safe.”

“My uncle...I've left him in the cabin...he's tried to murder me!” To her own ears and mind, it sounded hysterical—like some kind of ridiculous fantasy she must have conjured from her imagination. There was no chance this very severe-looking gentleman would believe that her own uncle would try to murder her—was there?

To Tabitha's great shock, he nodded, appearing distinctly unsurprised. He took her by her shoulders. “Go to the house. Run. Do not look back. I will take care of your uncle. You go and send word to Scotland Yard what's happened...” he paused, looking at her closely, “...and send for a doctor...for yourself. You...you don't look well, Alpha.”

She didn't feel well either. In fact, she felt completely drained. Nevertheless, she gave a stern nod to him and ran toward the house as fast as her feet would carry her. Residual pain from her ankle dogged at her but she ignored it, making certain to watch where she was running so that she might not find herself with the same lame foot stuck in another inconvenient hole. This time, she thought, such a hole might prove fatal.

“_Dimitri!_” she shrieked as the house loomed upwards against the mid afternoon sky. Her voice was the only to cut through the stillness but it seemed as though it were eaten by distance and open air. “_Dimitri!!!_”

To her great chagrin and to her increasing alarm, the only person who seemed to have heard her—and thus to come out upon the outer terrace—was George, who peered at her with a rather stupid looking expression, as though he were terribly confused by her appearance.

“Tabitha?” he asked, his voice wavering a bit, “I thought you were in the house...doing your needlework...you look an absolute fright. You shouldn't let anyone see you like this. It's...it's unbecoming.”

“Get out of my way,” she snapped, pushing him to the side with a strength she didn't realize she had left over which sent him stumbling off toward the steps. Once inside the house, she screamed again with all of her might and every bit of _Alpha_ within her. _“Dimitri!!!” _It was all she had left, she found, as the next cry of his name came out only as a pleading whimper. “_Dim...itri..._”

She wobbled, the pain in her ankle becoming too strong to bear and her vision blurring until she could see the dark static coming in from the sides. A sure sign she would faint dead away. Sweetness came to her then and even as she toppled over, she could sense it around her.

_Omega._

“Tabby!” came his muffled voice through her consciousness as warmth caught her and held her. Her head dangled but she could not bring herself to find the strength to lift it, her hair falling out of its pins and tumbling from around her head. “_Tabby!_” There were more voices. He was yelling something and soon she was able to open her eyes again to find that he had sat with her in his arms upon a nearby settee, resting her head upon the cushion. “Tabs, please stay awake with me.”

She whispered at him, her mouth feeling weak along with every other part of her body. She felt entirely like she might be able to sleep for a hundred years.

_No! You can't sleep yet! You haven't told him!_

“_Dimitri...I...”_

“I've called for the doctor, Tabby Cat—”

“I fear it may be too late...” she tried, raising her arm against that hideous weakness and touching his face. His skin was soft and warm and dry and her hand was so, so clammy. “My uncle...he's tried to...he's...”

Dimitri gasped, his head snapping upward. “Maggie! The atropine! Now!”

_Atropine. Of course. How could I have forgotten? It is only so easy to forget when I see his face. His beautiful gray eyes and his soft, giving lips..._

“Dimitri...I feel so...so tired...”

“Of course you do,” he told her, his black brows together sharply.

“No...that is...please don't hold it against me.”

“What?”

“_I love you._”

He blinked.

“I love you and...I wanted to marry you. There, I've said it. I've no regrets.”

Dimitri peered down at her curiously, his scent soothing though filled with a sparkling of apprehension. His long black hair, not held back by any ribbons or pins, tickled at her cheeks. “Alpha...”

She didn't feel much like crying but it didn't seem to matter. It hadn't mattered this whole time. Tears overflowed over her cheeks even though she did not weep. “I think I'm going to sleep now, Omega.” She would have, of course, if not for the sudden and painful pinch in her thigh which sent her eyes flying open again if only for the knowledge that someone had lifted her skirt high enough to expose it. She very nearly jerked away but was held fast and by the time she knew what had happened to her, it was over. “_For the love of God!_” she yelped, grasping at Dimitri's clothes. “That _smarts!_”

Dimitri was chuckling at her, his snickers only serving to enrage her.

“Do not laugh at me, Dimitri! I'm _dying!_”

He sputtered out another set of laughter. “Oh dear me, Tabby Cat...please do not be cross with me. It is only that you are _not_ dying.”

“I am not?” she asked, befuddlement overcoming her intense tiredness at least for the moment.

“No, my sweet Alpha...” he smiled down at her, his radiance becoming. “You are not dying.”

“But I was poisoned...”

He touched her face with his thumb, wiping at her tears which seeped still from her eyes. “I know. You were. But you're going to be fine. You came to me, Tabby. Remember the atropine? Remember from before?”

“I...I remember.”

“I know you came to me because you wanted to tell me...” he trailed off, his cheeks growing pink in the daylight which filtered in through the parlor window. “...but you're not going to die. Maggie and the others have prepared your room. We have to move you there.”

“Why do I...why do I feel so tired, still?”

“We'll talk about it when you awaken.”

She gripped his bow that was tied around his throat, holding it tightly. “Dimitri, I don't want to sleep. I fear I might not wake.”

He sighed, leaning down until he could press his forehead against hers, his sweetness overwhelming. “You will sleep no matter what you feel. Should it make you rest easier if you know now that I love you as well? That I have been denying it to myself for many days now? That I have engaged in such conflict with my own inner self over the notion that I have been, I fear, distant?”

This time her tears were hot and there was another lump in her throat. She threaded her fingers into his hair near his ear and whispered up at him. “_I missed you._”

“Tabby Cat...please don't make me cry.”

The heavy weight of sleep was too much a burden now and though she wished to stay awake for him, she found it was impossible. She drifted. The world blurred and changed and darkened and there was no more to worry about, at least for a time.

She dreamed. She dreamed that she was sitting in the meadow again but the shape of her uncle's house was no longer in the distance and it seemed as though the meadow might go on and on forever. There were no trees, no forests, and no people at all. It was merely Tabitha Baxter with her foot decidedly stuck in a hole. Thankfully there was no pain and the sun was warm and the grass was soft. Still—she was trapped without a method of releasing herself and no Dimitri in sight.

_Dimitri._

She stared down at her foot, stuck under some roots. She pulled at it, unable to dislodge it. Her stocking was torn again and she could see that she was bleeding but there was still no pain. Perhaps there wasn't meant to be pain. This was something that was mental rather than physical, she thought, though she wasn't sure why she was thinking it. Perhaps it was time to _move on_ from this, she figured. Instead of panicking or crying like she had before, she merely laid down on her back and stared up at the clear blue sky above her. There were no clouds and the warmth over her face lulled her into a trance.

_Dimitri. Oh wouldn't it be nice if he came to rescue me? Wait... Why...he already did!_ She sat up then, looking down at her foot which she presumed would still be stuck in the hole to find that it was very much free. Her stocking was missing, however, and she was no longer bleeding. In fact, both of her stockings were missing—as was her gown! She was left in nothing but her drawers and her shift and she stood then, turning about and covering her breasts with her arms.

“Dimitri?” she asked, her voice a little too loud.

_Oh I am horribly brash, aren't I? It's the Alpha bit of me._

She looked down and she could see it against the thin fabric of her shift as the breeze held the garment tight against her. If only it weren't so _bold_. If only it was something that could be hidden.

_He doesn't like it hidden. He likes it just the way it is._

“Dimitri?” she asked again, unsure. She took a few steps and found an odd, cold sensation on her foot. When she looked down, she had stepped upon a small white mushroom which squished between her toes. “Dimitri?” He had to be somewhere. There were mushrooms here...

Someone's warm hand touched her face and she gasped suddenly as she was no longer in the meadow at all but laying down in her bed. She startled, staring up into those sweet gray eyes.

He was smiling his smug little cock-sure smile. “Mmm...I do like to hear my name from you when you sleep.”

Tabitha let out a long sigh through her nose and then sheepishly grinned. “It was not a saucy dream.”

“Oh? Pity. Still...that you dream of me is enough. Welcome back, Alpha. I told you that you would wake.”

“That I allowed myself to sleep must betray that I trusted you.”

“Must it?” His expression was difficult to interpret but she could see that familiar vulnerability in him that had captured her imagination before.

She reached out for his hand, taking it and holding it tightly. “Yes, Omega. With everything...even my heart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tabitha saves _herself_ because **ALPHA**. Now she's unstoppable.


	13. Chapter 13

It came to pass that her uncle was found to be hiding in the forest, having no other refuges that were capable of harboring any kind of a fugitive from the law. As it was, the refuge that he had planned to murder Tabitha in had actually served as a decent hiding place for the very inspector that had caught him. He'd been so focused upon trying to capture her in a moment alone and have a place to hide her body that he had overlooked the very obvious telltale signs that a man had been living in the space—though roughing it, certainly. When the inspector had detailed the course of events to her, Tabitha had thought it very brave indeed for him to have stayed and very clever of him as well. He had clearly decided that something nefarious was afoot that had naught to do with the attempted murder of Mrs. Vickers. She recalled his words and thought Dimitri appeared rather smug when Selwick had uttered them.

_“It is not only Omegas who come by the coveted intuition. Alphas benefit just as much and it is a fine detective who hones it well.”_

In the days beyond, George had been rather unwell, his a sickness of the heart. His own father having betrayed his kin for the sake of his place in the title order—well, it was a difficult circumstance to find oneself in and he came to her at her bedside, sitting himself down in a chair nearby with his hands demurely in his lap and his brows tightly knit.

“I don't know what to say, cousin.”

She laid her head back upon her pillows and gave a sigh. “I don't know what there is to say, George. You and I both considered your father a noble man.”

He shook his head, uncharacteristically quiet when he spoke. “I am having difficulties reconciling the man I knew with the man who tried to kill you. It is almost as if he could not be the same...but he is.”

“Sometimes men simply get something in their heads, I suppose. And when things don't go to plan...”

George's scent was hot with grief. “Your father sent you a letter. What did it say?”

“He is coming. My parents will arrive by tonight. George...”

He raised his wet eyes to her.

“Your father loved you very much. He had his faults and his foibles but he did everything for you.”

“I think that might have been the problem, Tabitha. He did everything for me. I think...I think I might go abroad for a while. I think I might take a look around the world a bit. I don't know if I can stand this place any longer.” He nodded slightly as if agreeing with himself which seemed like a very George thing to do. “Yes. That's just the thing. I think I might try America first. Or perhaps India. Or...I don't know. The continent somewhere...”

“Well...wherever you do go, cousin...be certain to write, will you? And when you come back...you will introduce me to your mate...”

He gave a small smile to that, a little bashful. “Perhaps. If I find one.”

“I'm sure you will.”

He left her then, urging her to rest and regain her strength though in all honesty, she felt like she was quite useless indeed sitting in bed. It was not as though it took very long at all for the poison to become nullified by the atropine and indeed, it had been at least two days—more than enough time for all of the poison to be out of her body and for her to be right as rain. It was more so the emotional toll of the scenario that she thought was quite unbearable. She had been very nearly murdered by her beloved uncle and had fallen into Dimitri's arms and professed her love for him upon what she thought was her deathbed.

That little minx, of course, very much enjoyed that she was trapped in her bed and constantly came to see her and when he could not see her, he sent Maggie in with chocolate and sweets as though he might woo her even without his pretty little face nearby.

This afternoon, he was off busy somewhere—likely in the forest looking at his specimens when Maggie came in with some chocolate in a cup.

“Maggie,” Tabitha began, “I think it's about time I got up out of this bed. Would you—”

“The doctor said—”

“I don't care what the doctor said, I can't stand being in this bed any longer. Dimitri said it would be alright if I got up and I trust him more than I trust a doctor who looks to be so old he's mouldering around his temples. Has he left yet? I hope so.”

The woman sighed, placing her chocolate nearby on the tray. “No, my Lady. He's here for the week.”

“The week, oh for heaven's sake. Can he not be such an imposition? Does he not realize that I simply _require_ a walk in the woods?” She looked at Maggie's unimpressed expression and then said the rest of it. “A walk in the woods _with my Omega._”

“He's only out there looking at fungus. I can't imagine what could be so exciting for you.”

“Oh don't be coy.”

The woman was grinning, the side of her mouth slanted upward at a severe degree. “I know, I know...you found that hunting cabin and you'd like to see if the bed can hold up to your vigorous tests before your father arrives and puts the kibosh on your Alpha antics. How scandalous of you, my Lady.”

She tsked, still smiling. “Obviously when I find my own lady's maid, I will have to procure one who is a tad bit less indiscreet.”

Maggie was cackling at that, collecting any dirty laundry there was on the floor and was still cackling when she left.

“Saucy bitch...” Tabitha muttered to herself, supremely amused. In fact, she thought rather wickedly, she was going to have to offer Maggie a job before she left to try to steal her away. Surely if George was going to be off exploring the world, perhaps he would not mind losing just the one of his staff.

Once Maggie was gone, of course, she slid out of her bed and made her way to the closet, filtering through her clothes to see what she might be able to put on without much hassle so that she could sneak off into the forest. She was just about ready settle upon something when she heard the door open and she scrambled to the closet door.

“I've been feeling quite well doc—”

Dimitri stood just inside the door, peering at her with a very warm expression that was enough to melt her. “Good morning, Tabby Cat. Are you rested?”

She sighed. “Damn that doctor. I wished to go for a walk with you in the woods.”

“Surely you could. You're not still cross at me for laughing at you in your dire hour, are you?”

“Since you've told me that my uncle is an absolute fool and that the mushrooms I ate were unlikely to be fatal—”

“They're fatal...” he interrupted, “...to children...and probably the elderly.”

She strode to her bed, aware that he was looking at her dainty little bare feet when they poked out from beneath her night rail and dressing gown. “Well then why did we make such a stink about it for Mrs. Vickers?”

“It would still make her sick...or any of us sick...and should you have another physical ailment that it could interact with, it could kill you. It is only that laymen don't know anything about mushrooms,” he explained, moving to the side of her bed and sitting down upon it. He leaned over to remove his boots and when he had, he pulled his legs up onto the counterpane. “Mr. Vickers probably knew his wife would be sick from them at the very least and then, when he was in the room with her, he could have pushed a pillow over her face and she would have been too weak to fight him.”

She got on the bed as well, aware of how close they were as his scent tingled within her nose. “It would have still been very suspicious that a woman perished so randomly.”

“Murderers are not smart people,” he explained as though it were obvious, his head turning so that the curtain of his hair swooped over his shoulder. “If they were intelligent people, they would solve their problems by working around to a solution. Murder is an ugly bit of business and a shortcut—life is far too complex to take shortcuts.”

She stared at him, memorizing his face and a tiny dark mole on the edge of his jaw she wished to kiss. His scent was sparkling and shimmering and she could practically see the colors it invoked with her own eyes, a filter over the world. “Dimitri?”

“Yes, Tabby Cat?”

“Have you...well, we haven't discussed this...but have you given thought as to what I told you when I thought I was dying?”

He raised his brows. “Oh, I thought I might ignore those.”

“Ignore them?” she asked, feeling a strange pit open up in her stomach.

“Yes. You obviously said what you did because you thought you were dying. I cannot hold you to—”

“But Dimitri,” she sputtered, “I _want_ you to hold me to them. I didn't tell you because I didn't think I would have to live with the consequences—I told you because if I didn't tell you, I'd probably come back as some vengeful spirit for my regrets.”

He was quiet, looking at her with an unreadable expression while his scent muddled. “So...what are you really trying to tell me?”

“I'm trying to tell you that I love you and I wish to marry you.” Her face was burning, the skin under her eyes so hot that she felt like she could have cried had she not so much determination and will inside her now. There was nothing in the world that was going to stop her from her goal and it was at this point she truly understood the meaning of _Alpha. _It wasn't really when she had overpowered a man twice her size or even when she had screamed at him in her _Alpha_ voice so that she might escape—it was now. It was when all of her emotions and wishes were laid bare and she felt utterly shameless about them. She could look him in the eyes and tell him exactly what she wished for and not look away or look down. She could do things as an Alpha could do them and even though sometimes she didn't feel quite like an Alpha, she surely felt like one now. “Marry me, Dimitri. I could not stand to let you go. I could not think of another's hands touching you as I have touched you. I know that you have had lovers before me and perhaps some who were better than I was...but I can learn anything. I can do _anything_. I will be a Duchess but more than that, I will be your mate and it is that occupation that means more to me than anything.” She swallowed. “Have I...have I convinced you?”

His eyes were suddenly swimming and he sniffed and wiped at them with his sleeve. “T-Tabby Cat...you cannot simply say these things.”

“Well what a bunch of bollocks that is. You let yourself say all sorts of nasty things. I think you've got it out for me, you do. I think you really like me.”

“Don't say—”

“How many times have I told you not to say things and you've stumbled your way right through all of that. Barreled through all of that, even! I think I'll be the one doing the barreling now. I want to take care of you, Dimitri. I want to send you to Oxford. Or Cambridge. I want to make certain you become exactly what it is that you were meant to become. A scientist.”

“A mycologist.”

“And I'm going to become exactly what I was meant to become.”

His word was a breath. “A Duchess...”

“Your wife.”

It was enough to make him blink, his gaze sweeping down over her and then coming to the counterpane as his unique vulnerability floated toward the top of his scent and his expression.

“Dimitri...do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Will you marry me?”

“Only if...”

She reached for him, sweeping her thumb over his jaw to bring his face upward. “I will promise you anything, and I will make it so no matter what it is.”

“Only if you can promise me kisses every night. In closets. In pantries. In kitchens and bedrooms. Near fireplaces...in chairs...morning, afternoon, evening...the dead of night. I wish for one thing, Tabitha, aside from my career...and that is only to be adored.”

She smiled broadly. “Easy enough. What say you we begin the practice just now?”

“Now?”

“What are you, shy now that you know I wasn't just blathering on my death bed?” She reached for the silk bow around his throat and tugged at it until it loosened.

“It wasn't your death bed...I...”

“You still haven't told me you'll marry me.”

He reached up tentatively for his bow and untied it the rest of the way, pulling it away from his throat so that he might be bared to her. “I've no argument against it...save that I am far beneath you.”

“Let everyone else say that, but I'll hear none of it from you. I don't believe things like that. After all, a Duchess can do just about whatever she likes.” She reached for him, coming to her knees and crawling to him so that she might close the distance between them. “I don't think you believe any of that either.”

“It will be difficult.”

“So will Oxford.”

“Not nearly as...”

“Kiss me, Omega?”

He didn't waste a moment, swooping toward her and connecting with her brashly, his lips like satin as he pressed them into hers. A sparkling victory filled her and she grasped his hair, threading her fingers through it while she kissed him, the wanton inside her stirring to life and sending blood directly between her legs. She'd been sporting a half-stiffness for most of the morning with thoughts of him but now, with his tongue firmly exploring her mouth, she was fully aroused and painfully hard. Dimitri, ever-aware as he was, had her dressing gown open and one hand to her waist while the other cupped one small breast through the thin fabric of her night rail.

_“Dimitri...”_ she murmured into his mouth.

“We didn't lock the door.”

“I can't stand to think of your hands away from me even for a moment...”

He chuckled when he broke away from her kiss, his breath warm over her cheek. “You are such a darling Alpha. How much pleasure should I show you today?”

“_Teach me..._”

“First, I'm going to lock the door.”

“But—”

“As I lock the door, you're going to take off your clothes and then you're going to present to me, Tabby Cat.”

She jerked, startled. “What?”

Dimitri kissed her lips again, teasingly. “Do you think I'm going to have a lovely little girl for my wife and not take advantage of that delicious little slit she's got? I love how wet you get back there for me. I can't wait to jam my rod right into your pretty quim.”

Her mind was whirling. “Just when I thought I'd gotten the hang of being an Alpha and...”

“And now you'll get a little taste of your Omega bits. That's the beauty of being born a woman and an Alpha,” he explained as he slid from the bed toward the door. “Well? Take off your clothes.”

She scrambled then, pulling everything off and tumbling it onto the floor in a heap before she turned about again to see him approaching the bed. He was casually discarding his frilly nonsense, revealing inches of lovely paleness that she could not help but wish to touch and caress. The swell of his chest and the slope of his belly teased her horribly and when he had finally shucked his breeches and stockings, she couldn't help but be fascinated yet again by his very male appendage which reached for her in its own manner. A dusty pink, it bobbed a bit when he walked to the edge of the bed and he chuckled at her.

“Grab one of the pillows, darling, and put your posterior in the air for me. I want to taste you first.”

“You want to _what?_” she squeaked. Still, she did what he asked, pulling a pillow to her breasts and balancing up on her knees. She gasped when she felt his weight behind her on the bed and groaned loudly when she felt the prod of his tongue opening the folds of her which dripped in her arousal. This was where an Alpha was supposed to put himself. She'd known it almost instinctively before she'd presented and now that Dimitri was about to do it, she held within her a few odd misgivings. Was it moral to do something like this? Did it matter if it wasn't? She had thought many times about what it might feel like to be taken by a man and now she wondered if it wasn't quite what she hoped it would be. There was trepidation flowing out of her and she knew he could smell it.

“Shh, darling,” he insisted, his breath tickling her inner thighs and causing gooseflesh to rise over the whole of her body, her nipples tightening. “I only wish to love you best I can. I'm going to fill you with my spend...as if I were to breed you. A bold bit of fantasy, isn't it? I'd fill you with my pups were I an Alpha.”

“W-What an odd thing to say...” Yet her body reacted to it nonetheless. She wanted him inside her then. She wanted to know what it felt like to take a man into her body and feel how it might be to hold his seed. “Must you tease me?”

He licked at her again, his tongue toying with the sensitive flesh that often cradled her length when it was soft. “You're so tasty, little Alpha. How could I help myself but to tease you?”

She let her head flop down onto the pillows before her and she hugged her chosen one to her chest tighter. Closing her eyes seemed to slow time and force her to take in all the sensations of his mouth upon her. Kissing the place where her thighs met her buttocks and then higher, nibbling the meat of her rump until she softly squealed. When finally he drew away and she felt the press of something larger against her tender wetness, she raised her head again and peered over her shoulder at him.

“Are you ready, darling?”

“Y-yes!”

“Alright.” He pushed inside her and the sensation was certainly novel, she thought. It seemed, when he was all the way in, that he was simply made for her. They fit together so perfectly—as two puzzle pieces might. “Does it feel alright? Not pinching anything?”

“It feels...interesting. Is it supposed to feel...uhm...”

He looked down at her. “Boring? Well, a little. It's a bit more complex to be the one receiving, I've found. It took me a while to find out how exactly to work my own orgasms into being. I think it'll take some practice. But right now...” He drew out and then forward again, slowly performing _the act_ so that his eyes closed and his mouth turned upward into a pleasured smile. “Oh you feel so good, Tabby Cat. You're such a tight little virgin here, all pink and glittering with your slick.”

“I don't have slick.”

He drew his hand down to where they were joined and toyed with her until he could slip a finger inside her alongside his cock. When he brought it out again, he sniffed it daintily and then licked it. “Hmm...funny...tastes like feminine arousal. Almost like...slick.” He continued his thrusts, slapping against her at a new angle until she could feel a gentle pleasure building upon itself inside her.

“Mmmph...slick is for...Omegas.”

“How dreadful to say. Slick is for my girl.” He bent over her back as he fucked her, sliding his hands between her body and the pillow she held to pinch at her nipples. His breath against her ear caused her body to tighten on him and he groaned in response. “Slick is for my little Alpha girl.” He kissed her temple and breathed hard. “Oh Tabby, you're so tight around me. You're going to make me come so quickly. I haven't even had time to play with your breasts all I want. We will certainly have to stay abed all day as the doctor suggests. I'll come in you and, of course, you'll come in me. I can't wait to have another vigorous fuck with you...oh gods.”

“You're _already_ having a vigorous fuck with me!”

“Mmmrgh!” he growled lightly, taking her ear into his mouth and nibbling it until she heard herself crying out. _God! How aroused could she be?!_ Her member was rock hard, rubbing back and forth between her body and the counterpane as he thrust inside her, her wetness almost embarrassing for how much of it there was. She could feel it practically _splashing_ out of her with every snap of his hips.

“_Ahn!_” she cried. “_Ahn! Ahn! Ahhhngh!_” Much to her surprise, her climax came to her without the usual sharpness. It was more like an overcoming of sorts. As though a cup which had frothed with its beverage had overflowed and the build-up released. Her body tensed inexorably and she gripped her pillow—and by extension, Dimitri's hands—tighter to her breasts.

“_Alpha!_” he gasped against her temple. “_Alpha! Alpha! Alpha!!! Uhn!_”

His weight was over top of her, pressing her down into the bed while she huffed beneath him, her own sticky essence between her belly and the counterpane. They took a moment like this, soaking in the warmth of each other and the scents that mingled and morphed into a creation beyond the both of them separately.

Tabitha sighed, feeling warm all over. “I do hope...well, that is...”

With shaking arms, he lifted himself to allow her more room and in doing so, allowed her also to turn over beneath him. “You do hope what, dearest?”

“I do hope that you might spend the day with me...like this. Before my parents arrive, that is. I feel as though we will not get an opportunity before our wedding night should we not take advantage...”

He grinned impishly down at her. “Oh Alpha...there are _always_ opportunities if one has the mind to look for them...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did that thing again where I forget that it's Friday...and I update this on Saturday instead. If anyone would like to chat with me on Discord (and help remind me when it's time for an update...lol) you're welcome to join on my **[Discord Server](https://discord.gg/7U7P4z7)** which I have just recently opened up to anyone who would like to join!


	14. Chapter 14

The Duke of Vanbarton was a very tall fellow and far more stately than his younger brother, Dimitri decided when he made his bow. Tabitha looked a fair bit like him but took all her fairness from her mother who was a careful and dainty little Omega with kind eyes and a sparkling spirit. It was difficult to tell whose personality Tabitha had taken on and Dimitri was nearly vibrating to find out. Inside the drawing room and joined by Tabitha, Selkirk, and his father, Dimitri was eager to give the best impression he could possibly muster, which probably wasn't saying much. Still, the Duke was graceful and at least somewhat intimidating despite the warmth in his scent and expression.

_Has Tabitha already said something about me?_

His father was nervously chattering about something. “—and you see, there was such excitement, it was difficult to really comprehend that we would be joined by such an illustrious man as yourself, your Grace. Can I get you a drink? Though it is not my house, it being that the host is otherwise indisposed and I having been a guest—”

“Father,” Dimitri interrupted him, giving him a pointed glance. “Please sit.”

Tabitha appeared as though she might have been on the verge of laughter but her trained expression was stoic to any who did not know her well. “Mother, Father, now that you have met Dimitri, I should tell you right away that I wish to marry him.”

The Duke raised his brows but nothing could stop him from taking a seat on the nearby divan. The tall Alpha leaned forward, taking a good hard look at Dimitri while his wife took a seat next to him, her eyes roving over the Omega's stance and, presumably, his clothes. With a soft clearing of his throat, he spoke in a low tone that was much like Mr. Baxter's voice but far more refined in nature. “I assume you've grown very close, then.”

“Dimitri is going to be a mycologist. He studies mushrooms.”

There was a tick upward to the side of the Duke's mouth. “A scholar then. A very unique young gentleman.”

“Indeed. Though I do not require it, I find myself seeking your blessing.”

He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Spoken like a true Marchioness. I see that spending a little time here has, truly, been good for your nature. I do find myself fuzzy on the details, of course.”

Selkirk lit his pipe and wandered to the side cupboard where he poured himself a brandy. “If I'm to go through it again, I'll need a sturdy sip. It was the young Mr. Mavros who alerted me to the first attempted murder suspect—or suspects, as it were. Mrs. Witters had inadvertently made a distinct slip of the tongue when she was speaking before the group when she said something about a would-be murderer. At this point, there was no potential murder. Just a series of unfortunate happenings. This raised the idea that perhaps she knew more than she let on. 

“Naturally, we grasped upon that thought and coupled with the fact that Lady Tabitha was wearing a dress of similar color to the intended victim, along with the intended's own hat—well, things did fall into place then.” He took a gulp of his brandy. “After that, I got a very queer feeling about the happenings in this house. All the pieces of information I had found led me to believe that there was something heinous still lingering. The signs of wear on the rugs...the faded curtains...it is not that you are in dire straits, your Grace, and so I was forced to bow to my intuition in thinking your brother was very invested in the idea that his son was to inherit your wealth. He invited your niece to stay with him but for what reason? He did not know that a parallel murder plot was going to unfold in his own home and could not let it get in the way of his own nefarious inclinations...”

The Duke put his hands together, lacing his fingers, his scent tinged with something like grief. “He always seemed quite taken by Tabitha... An unexpected presentation would certainly harm his love for her, I suppose. I hadn't considered it...” He drew his eyes up to his daughter's face. “I'm sorry, my dear. I didn't know it would cause such contention to have you stay with him. I suppose I should have been more discerning when he asked to have you stay here. But how could we have known? He...was always such a good brother...”

The Duchess reached out for him and touched her hand to his arm. “Despite all this, you're alive, Tabitha. That's what matters the most. I don't know what I'd do should anything have happened to you.”

Tabitha reached out and took Dimitri's hand, the warmth of her inviting when she looked at him and he met her gaze. “I have to thank my Omega for much of my well-being. He has been quite influential...”

Selkirk cleared his throat, puffing on his pipe again. “His role is not understated.”

Mr. Mavros blustered from his seat. “He's a very willful boy and exceptionally intelligent.”

Tabitha spoke again. “I'd like to send him to Oxford. He was in school in America, but I think he would do well to have an education here, where they might appreciate him.”

“Oxford...” the Duke repeated, nodding slowly. “The benefit of Oxford is that it has, so far, had a fair number of Omegas attend. You would not be setting any precedents and they would likely treat you relatively well...is that something you might wish for, Mr. Mavros?”

He swallowed tightly. “Yes...y-your Grace.” He bit his lip, hoping he could keep himself from an errant comments.

“Good. Should my daughter wish to marry a scholar, he'd best be a decent one at the very least.”

Tabitha peered at Dimitri and then her father again. “Does this mean we have your blessing?”

“You said yourself that you don't require such a thing.” He bestowed upon her a saucy little grin. “Yes. You have my blessing. If he makes you happy and he can provide you an heir, I don't care what you do. You can't embarrass our family any more than my brother already has and...well, Tabitha...I trust your judgment.”

Dimitri couldn't help his little incredulous scoff at that and when the Duke flashed his eyes to him, he coughed a bit to hide it, giving the man a wide smile instead.

“Young Mr. Mavros,” he started softly. “I trust that this summer has been very transformative for you. Americans such as yourself with such loud personalities that can be observed from across an entire room seem to have a difficult time adjusting to the English way of things. I do hope that my daughter has made an impression upon you in only the best of ways and that you might consider allowing England to further influence your...demeanor.”

Dimitri popped a brow, forgetting all about his resolve. “Are all Dukes as mealy-mouthed as you are?”

Tabitha sputtered out a laugh but suppressed it quickly with her hand over her mouth, her eyes still glittering with amusement while every other person in the room seemed to stiffen with their tension.

Dimitri was, in fact, on the brink of an apology which he was certain would sound less-than-sincere when the man spoke again.

“Fascinating.” He straightened, his hands on this thighs while he observed the Omega where he stood. “I see exactly why she likes you. You're a little foppish Roman Candle. I daresay, you might set the whole of the ton on its ear.” He laughed at himself. “If you wish me to speak plainly, Mr. Mavros, I was suggesting that you dress like a Duke if you are to become one but I see now the uselessness of that suggestion—the dress of a Duke, after all, is whatever a Duke chooses to wear.”

“That's a bit of a relief, I suppose,” he replied, “as I am very much attached to my fashion.”

“Is that what you call that?”

He grinned. “I think I'm going to like you, your Grace. Despite my better judgment.”

The Duke let him have a smirk. “Likewise, Mr. Mavros. Now. I'd like a nice spring wedding. Then the both of you will have plenty of time to settle into the estate before you head off to Oxford in the fall next year.”

Tabitha blinked. “Estate? You mean Grovewind?”

“Of course I mean Grovewind. It will be very suitable for you. Plenty of land to do with what you will, though some of it might need some updating. It is out of the way in the country so you won't be bothered, and it has a large library that could always use some more books should it be tended to by an intelligent soul willing to add to it. Not only that, but after you've completed your studies, Mr. Mavros, you might consider filling it with my grandchildren.”

Dimitri shared a glance with Tabitha, his heart filling with a liquid, pooling warmth. It was difficult to imagine his life before Tabitha. As subsequent days seemed to flow around him, he realized just what Tabby had meant when she told him she wished to have him as much as possible before her parents arrived. It seemed that there was nothing the older couple liked more than their daughter and they sought to spend much time with her, inviting Dimitri along in their conversations and their small gatherings while they determined what to do about Baxter and the scandal he'd created. He scarce had any time alone with her at all.

_Is this how it will be for the whole of the winter? Am I to be driven to madness for want of her? I do not think myself capable of handling such a long engagement..._

He could barely manage to get a single moment alone with her despite that they were now betrothed and, as a rule, betrothed couples were granted at least a modicum more freedom than those who were unbound by promise. Still, they managed what was needed.

As Dimitri's father was called away on business, the Omega was left to the mercy of his future family and as though in apology, Tabby Cat graciously found ways to make certain he knew she was not at all bothered by what seemed to be a maelstrom of activity and planning. Tabby Cat, sometimes, would interrupt his daily proceedings and ask him to accompany her on small errands as though she might need help with advice on something or another. He would go, naturally, and in the course of things, he would find himself very cozily nestled against her in a nearby linen closet.

In the darkness, he smelled her hair and her contentment. With the way things had been shaken about, he was grateful indeed to have these moments to be quiet and alone.

“I cannot wait, Alpha, to have you like this in a bed. Where I do not have to hide my affection for you.”

“As though you could hide anything about you,” she teased him, nibbling his lower lip. “I think my father is besotted by you for your candid cruelty to him. Even my mother thinks you are a darling little wretch.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think you are far too pretty for your own good. And I think you know it. I also think I'd like to lick every inch of you. God you are so sweet tonight...”

“Do not get overly used to this. Tomorrow—”

“Yes, yes,” she murmured near to his ear, skimming her lips over his lobe, “tomorrow we're off to London...would that I could have a whole carriage alone with you. I would have you quite disheveled upon our arrival.”

“Or vice-versa,” he contested.

As it turned out, he would have certainly opted for that option even without the promise of an affair within as that morning, snow had decided to begin to fall on their way to London and the carriage was damnably cold. He would have liked to have snuggled up with her in his lap, perhaps sink her down over his stiff little prick and bounce her up and down until she was a mess. Well, perhaps the latter part of that fantasy was a bit over the top but at the very least, he would have liked to have shared in her natural Alpha heat. The Season could never have distracted him, he thought, and he was at least partially right.

Though he was brought to the modiste by the Duchess and encouraged to update what he wore, he would only make very few concessions and the poor woman was left tapping her lips at him, shaking her head while she tried desperately to convince him that he would have to abandon his style for the sake of London sensibility. She was still grumbling about him when she promised the Duchess that his questionable clothes should be made before some ball or another and he was still standing about wishing he was in a warm parlor by a fireplace with his legs wrapped around his tiny Alpha beauty. He was going through the motions, certainly, but he couldn't appreciate this world in the way that Tabby Cat must have. She was born for this. He was most assuredly _not_. In fact, once this season was over, he thought, he would endeavor never to have wasted his time here again.

He thought the same when he was finally in those very clothes and standing in the foyer of that very ball. This was absolutely ridiculous. It was almost as ridiculous as some of the hotels he'd stayed in with his father. Glittering candles in huge chandeliers, girls in beaded slippers pressing against each other and making eyes at the Alpha, and of course gowns that shimmered in the light as though made of millions of beetle shells—perhaps they were. He frowned at nearly everything and especially at people if they looked at him and gave him odd expressions or whispered to their friends just after they saw him. A frown was all he needed. That and a head held high and haughty as was usual. After all, he was here with the Duke of Vanbarton and his Marchioness daughter. What could they really do or say to him?

He was ready for a fight when a tall Alpha in a dashing waistcoat and trousers approached, her reddish brown hair in a thick braid around her head and her skin just a few shades darker than was considered in vogue for London. She addressed him first, giving a low bow and speaking to him with a voice that was not quite as English as it should have been. As though she had been born here but out of country for some time—her words influenced by many years of travel.

“Good evening, little one. I see you've brought with you the Lady Riverwell. Heir to a Duke same as I—and what a pair we will make strolling into Parliament together.”

Tabitha gave a little eep as she curtsied. “My Lady!”

“Call me Ash.”

“T-Tabitha, if you please. Oh dear, it is so good to make your acquaintance...”

“Oh no, dearest, it is far better to have made yours. We've got to close ranks, us Alpha girls, you know.” She gave the small Alpha a grin. “Now that you're one of us, you'll have to come to afternoon tea, say next week Tuesday? We normally have it at the Idlewind house.”

“Oh! Oh yes!” she replied, a little breathless.

Ash smiled warmly at Dimitri. “And you're invited too, little one. One never leaves out one half of a whole, after all. Congratulations on your engagement. We'll see you then?”

Dimitri nodded, unable to keep his eyes from drifting to Tabitha who simply appeared so damned _cute_ when she was excited how she was. He felt himself gaining a bit of a flush as the taller Alpha retreated. He faced Tabby and blurted, “Alpha, I do not think that we will make it through tonight without my having embarrassed you somehow.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I'm going to kiss you.”

“Now?” she asked, surprised, taking care to settle herself before looking about at all the revelers.

“Well not _now_, but tonight...I...I really do think you look quite delicious and I can't help myself. I have to get my lip paint all over you.” He couldn't very well lie to her. She was a dream. Though she did like her Omega hues, she was quite handsome indeed in the deep grayish blue Alpha-toned gown she wore. It had the faintest shimmer to it as though the threads themselves used to complete it were blessed by iridescence. Short, dyed blue feathers stuck out of her hair in a perfect complement to its golden color and she looked as though she were a creature straight out of some divine fantasy. A celestial being who held tight the wisdom of ages. It was silly to think such, he reminded himself. After all—she was his Tabby Cat and she was often quite bumbling.

“You cannot wait until we are home?” She appeared more amused than anything and though he very much wished to respond to her, he was interrupted by the arrival of a small Omega girl whose height was comparable to Tabitha's and whose scent was fresh and floral like the wafting fragrance of lily of the valley growing in the shade of a mountain. “Oh!” Tabitha peeped, her back straightening and her shoulders squaring. “Winnie...I mean...Lady Winifred...”

That very Lady made a deep curtsy in her soft pink evening gown, the puffy feathers in her hair wobbling this way and that. “Lady Riverwell.”

Tabitha bowed her head slowly. “This is my fiance, Mr. Mavros.”

He bowed to her, noting that her stance and her scent betrayed a deeper relationship than their salutations suggested. There was certainly a history here, he thought. The way Tabby had said her name at the first..._Winnie._ Oh yes. The poor Alpha had thought herself very well suited to becoming an Omega. This girl was a vestige of a lost time. How easily one could forget when things were going so nicely now...

The girl curtsied to him as well, her eyes taking him in roughly. “A um...a...uhm...American, is that right?” she asked, her gaze consistently shifting over his attire and the berry shade of his lips; the way his hair was pulled from his face in braids but fell down his back as though he were some elven creature of lore and the autumn-colored laurel that rested on his head.

Dimitri responded. “That's right. How do you do?”

“Um...very well. I hadn't expected Tabitha to have...”

“Found a mate so quickly?” he finished for her.

Her eyes found Tabby. “You only just presented, after all...”

The Alpha looked at Dimitri and then back to the Lady Winifred. “I should say I didn't find Mr. Mavros. Fate found Mr. Mavros for me. And then he just would not stop pestering me.” She reached up and adjusted the little pocket square in his waistcoat pocket. “He's very endearing if you can parse out whatever it is he's trying to say.”

He popped a brow at her. “You'd better watch your tongue, marionette. I am still taller than you are. I might just pop you right in a closet around here and forget about you. I'll hang you up with the coats.”

Lady Winifred's eyes were near popping out of her skull. “Tabitha...might we have a moment?”

He lifted a finger. “Unfortunately, I've decided right now that Tabby Cat has lost her privileges to speak with strange Omegas alone.”

“Strange Omegas?” she asked, affronted. “I am hardly a strange Omega...”

“You're strange to me.”

Tabby was laughing and she placed her small hand to Dimitri's chest. “A moment only, Omega. Go tuck yourself in with my father, would you? Or perhaps annoy some of the other strangers around here with your forked tongue, you little devil.”

Chastised, though having a decent bit of fun despite, he left her with his chin jutted out, marching his way through the throngs of people and ducking errant Alphas as he went. They almost seemed as though they wished to speak with him but he wasn't in the mood for the antics of foolish men and so he side-stepped plenty of them and ignored them entirely if they sought to call out to him. When he'd gotten his punch and sipped at it, he examined the crowd and the cluster of Omegas, finding everything in this big, hot room to be somewhat entertaining now that he'd started off well.

_Forked tongue._ Now that was an image he really did like and it boosted him to no end. There was no telling who might be his next victim though he assumed that it would likely be one of these daring and absurd men who sought to capture his eye. Did they not know he was betrothed? His scent alone should have been able to attest to that, though for some it didn't seem to alter their tack. Not only that, it might have been difficult to sense any scent at all in this godforsaken atmosphere which was teeming with hundreds of scents—most of them Alphas with overbearing spice and frustrations. He'd encountered plenty of that back in the States and so he brushed it off easily. What he could not brush off easily was the presence of a rather large Alpha beside him suddenly.

A pale-faced man with intense pewter eyes was peering over him as though looking at a piece of raw meat he might wish to sink his teeth into. Then again, that very same expression seemed almost as though it conveyed an entirely different emotion—that of a man who was staring at a piece of rubbish he wished to toss into the bin.

Dimitri, having absolutely no patience for either emotion, decided to utilize the gift of his _forked tongue._

“Whatever it is you think you might say to me, Alpha, you might just as well keep your blithering mouth shut. You might also avert your eyes before they wither up and fall right out of your skull. I'm not interested in whatever you might do, say, or mention in the least and I couldn't care a whit if you were to drop dead right where you stand. Good day.” He made to take a step forward when he noted the Alpha had opened his mouth to retort. “_Did you not hear me, Alpha? I said, piss off._” It was then that he took his step and then another, losing himself into the crowd and finding that he was just barely brushing the edges of the large grouping of Omegas who formed a veritable wall and eyed him with clear suspicion.

A girl at the edge spoke to him, addressing him as though she might a child. “Do you know who that was? That was Lord—”

“Lord Fuckwit, I assume,” he replied easily, sipping his punch again and watching the girls gasp and look at each other, scandalized.

A cold, hard Alpha voice sounded from behind him. “Lord Fuckwit wasn't finished speaking with you, Omega.”

He turned around to find that very Lord standing too close to him, his fists balled at his sides and his glare powerful. “How rude of him to assume he had right to speak with me at all,” he replied easily, taking care to glance into his glass to make certain he had plenty of punch left. He'd probably have to go back to the punch bowl soon anyway.

“You are an uppity little creature, aren't you?” the man asked him, peering about slyly as though to make certain only the Omegas could hear.

“They tell me that every so often. My reply is usually the same as it was for you. You rich, pompous men always think—”

“_Shut up, Omega._”

The use of _Alpha_ voice momentarily stunned him, ceasing his speech abruptly.

“That's better, you see I'm of the mind that an Omega is inherently benea—” He didn't actually get to finish that thought since, all of a sudden, Lord Fuckwit's face was covered in whatever was left of Dimitri's punch.

He felt a multitude of hands come out from the cluster and grasp at him, clutching him hard and drawing him back so quickly he nearly stumbled into the forgiving structure of bodies. They were petting him and massaging him along with all the girls who had been along the front line who had been shocked as well by the use of the _voice_ and a heavy murmuring was flowing through their ranks as news spread of an event of some magnitude. Of course, Dimitri was really only nonplussed about one thing.

Lady Winifred appeared in front of him, her eyes alight with excitement. “You, sir, really are making quite the scene. Not that it's not warranted, I'll give you that. That dratted Alpha has been haunting us for some time now. I wish I'd seen the look on his face when you'd told him off. I'm too short to have seen it! Gracious, it's a wonder Tabitha likes you. You must shock her right out of her stockings. Or perhaps that's what she really needed all this time...”

Dimitri peered at her quietly while the group undulated around them in their trepidation and excitement.

“Please do not hold it against me that Tabitha once proposed to me. I rejected her because I was fearful of how it might look for me—to have such a small Alpha and one so feminine as my mate...but you, Omega...well...you seem to do well under any circumstance, do you not? Graces. I wish I had that sort of gumption. Tell me, how did it feel?”

“It was nothing...only just...” he lamented. “Now I will have to get another glass of punch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, and you all thought this was dead, didn't you? O ye of little faith.


	15. Chapter 15

He was radiant. He looked very much like an elven prince no matter where he went. Spring apple blossoms fell around him when they married at Grovewind and caught in his hair and the laurel about his head. He smelled so sweet and everything about him was light and airy. Even his eyes seemed brighter than their usual medium gray and when he smiled, she was caught breathless by him—his lip paint a very delicate powder pink with a glossy finish which arrested her more than once and left her wondering how in the world she would kiss him without destroying it.

Tabitha managed to forget all about that when the vicar told her that she could—she kissed him sweetly and though it was not passionate, it was meaningful. She knew he felt it as much as she had for his scent bloomed into a thousand rays of brilliant colored lights in her mind and she was caught in the splendor of it, wishing ever after that she might witness such beauty again.

“I love you, Dimitri,” she admitted against his lips. It was a wonder that she could forget everyone watching them as they stood before the vicar and underneath the apple trees. But there was no one else in the world just then—only him.

“Of course you do,” he replied in a whisper, causing her to grin and giggle along with him. “For you cannot help yourself. You are so empathetic that you can feel my own love and must mirror it in return.”

It was fortunate, of course, that they managed to have this moment—however short—to themselves because immediately after there was a barrage of wedding guests that had to be greeted and visited with and told how wonderful it was that they could be there. Tabitha had hoped that they'd cut it close to the moment that Dimitri would fall into his next heat. She'd heard of some very fortunate couples who'd been able to skip their receptions for the arrival of their first mating had come quite early. Of course, how much of that was from nerves, she couldn't be certain, and Dimitri did not seem the type to succumb to any sort of nervous affliction...least of all, a heat.

Her father was booming with his strong voice through the hall over the dining table as they ate, gushing over both her and Dimitri as much as she thought he would. “He's a brilliant boy. You should hear him speak! A fine catch. A diamond in the rough. He's a bit of a ruffian but he'll have to be to challenge those meatheads at Oxford.”

A round of stunned murmurs went around the table. Oxford? He can't really mean... Really? Oxford? An Omega? At Oxford?

She distracted herself very well by hooking her foot behind his own beneath the long tablecloth, pulling his leg toward her and relishing the way his mouth tilted at the side as he tried to hide his expression. He was resilient against her assault but he was no match for her when she had subtly placed her hand upon his knee.

“Tabby Cat...” he whispered softly.

“What?”

“What is it that you are doing, darling?”

“Oh? It is only you who may touch my knee at inappropriate times?”

He flashed her a put-upon stare and then, in an instant, a wicked one. He did not stop her then, allowing her to touch him as she saw fit and even, when her fingertips strayed a little too close to the inside of his thigh, he gave a nearly inaudible sigh that could have sent her into rut alone, she thought.

She couldn't wait to get him upstairs and was near to vibrating with the displeasure of having been kept from him by the time midnight approached and there were still revelers in the house expecting her company. Finally, it seemed that even her mother was to tire from the attention she received and made excuses for them, allowing them to escape to their chamber which had been redecorated before their arrival to reflect their married status.

“Ah...there is a duchess suite,” Dimitri observed as the door was shut upon the ducal chamber. “And a door between them. How interesting that all is...”

“It's not interesting at all,” Tabitha told him quickly. “You and I are not sleeping in separate rooms.”

“Of course not,” he agreed. “Though if you're very naughty, I might lock you in there one day.”

She arched a brow at him and took him by the front of his waistcoat, dragging him to her and down a bit so he stooped. “You are a darling little animal. I'm going to be ravenous for you.”

“Are you?” he asked. “It seems as though you might be ravenous for me now.”

“You smell very good.”

“I can feel it coming. Any day now. I'm very sensitive. The first thing I notice is that I hate my clothes.”

“Then take them off,” she countered. “It's been months and all I've had of you is whatever I can manage in a linen closet. I feel starved of you.” She certainly did feel quite starved of him, she thought morosely. He was right near to her at all times, being lovely and stubborn and sassy all the way and here she was only ever to catch remnants of his warmth. Now she was promised the whole of him again after all this time, his body beneath her and his long legs wrapped around her hips.

Dimitri, appearing to assess the merit of her command, began to undress himself and even waved her away from him when she moved to assist. “I should hate to also be saddled by your ridiculous wedding gown. You take care of that and I'll take care of this. I can't know who's got more ribbons.”

When they were finally unclothed, she followed his lead when he nestled himself beneath the heavy sheets and counterpane, his laurel still pinned to his braids when he laid his head down and sighed.

“This,” he stated clearly, “is the most comfortable bed I've ever been in. Not only that but I don't think I've ever shared a bed with someone I felt so fond of.”

“No?” she asked, drawing the sheets up over her shoulders and inching near to him until she was almost touching him, their warmth mingling. “And here I thought you were a man who'd had just about everything that pleasure could provide. Haven't you loved before?”

“Yes,” he told her honestly. “I think they call it puppy love.”

“You should never underestimate the draw of a first love,” she answered. “After all, there is an attachment there that can transcend all reason. For no reason can really be found in the formation of such loves. What we have here is mature, and reasoned.”

“You've got to be joking.”

She stared at his severe expression by the candlelight and couldn't keep herself from an insidious giggle. “Well alright. It's not reasoned...or mature...but I know I love you and that it is more than just the transitory sort.” She reached out for him and watched him watch her as her hand moved toward his body. With just a skim of her fingertip, she traced about his nipple, watching it stiffen and tighten up.

“They're more sensitive around now,” he explained. “Also your scent...it becomes more than it was before, though before it was just as lovely. It is like...” he thought for a few moments. “It is like honey drizzled into my tea and the coldness of peppermint in your mouth. It is not earthy like so many Alphas but made to be more. It is the touch of heat from cinnamon and the individuality of anise. It is warm wool socks in winter but the bite of a cold wind on your nose. The shaving of ice from skating and wispy curls upon the glassy surface of a pond. You are the warmth of an evening fire after a long journey home and the coolness in your throat after a gulp of whiskey. Winter snow. Spring Rain. The blessing of a cool night after the heat of Summer. The first graze of Autumn's bite.”

“Shhh...” She leaned her head down and exalted in his sigh when she lovingly suckled him, scenting his arousal as he squirmed among the covers.

“Tabby Cat...” he tried, his hand to her curls to encourage her. “Mmm...I've been thinking about you doing things like this to me.”

She lifted her head and rapidly kissed his chin before she ended at his mouth, raising herself over him until she could straddle his waist. “You little deviant. Having fantasies about me. How base of you.”

“I am nothing if not base,” he replied, seeking to prove such a statement as his hands came to her breasts and teased her. “I will seek to be ever more base as I lose myself. God, I can feel it coming quickly now. By the morning I will be panting for you.”

She was hard against him and she couldn't help but be at least a little shy about it as she peered down past his fingers teasing her breasts at where she lay over his belly, stiff and florid. She could even feel her warm wetness behind it and she bit her lower lip as a small bit of shame touched at her heart.

“I'm almost panting over you now,” he told her softly. “Why don't you back up a little bit, darling? Let me see if I remember how tight that little pussy is for me?”

That small vestige of shame melted away when she took his advice, easing back until she could feel him hard against her thigh. He reached down and held himself up until she could slide over him, the wetness of her dripping sheath making it far too easy for him to squeeze inside.

“Mmmm...Tabby...that's good.”

“Does it feel just as good as you do to me?”

“Oh yes,” he groaned, his hands coming to her hips to guide her into a good rhythmic bounce back and forth before one of those hands came to her member, slicked with her own dew. “You feel so good to me, darling. So good...ahnn...” He stroked her, their intimate coupling lasting only just a minute before they were spent, their climax only within a few seconds of each other and after which they lay trembling in each other's arms. He snuggled her close with her head tucked into his throat and breathed hard beneath her, pulling the covers over her. The last she knew, he was still inside her as she dozed, lost into a dreamless and restful slumber.

That was, until she awoke at the very first light of dawn. The crickets were still churr-churr-churring and there were birds just beginning to find their song as light bled into the sky. She was aching between her legs. It was a somewhat familiar sort of ache—one that happened when she was in rut.

Rut!

She lifted herself, her eyes sharp and her mouth filling with saliva. Her body tensed and she looked down where she straddled him, her Alpha member swelled at the base and this time for good reason. She could feel the prickle of sweat forming on her neck and under her arms.

“_Dimitri,_” she whispered carefully, her muscles feeling abnormally tight as she lowered herself down again toward his face, her breaths in shallow pants as his scent was casting a dense shadow over her mind. When he woke, he fluttered his dark, silky lashes and licked his lips as his nose sought her out.

“_Mmmm? Tabby Ca-Cat? Darling? You smell so good..._”

“I could gobble you up, Dimitri, and I think I will have no choice but to devour you in the hours we have together now. If there is anything we must have, we must call for it between passionate turns for I cannot think to spare a moment now. Please. _Please_, Dimitri. Let me have you. Let me take you. I want to be held by your body and—”

“Gods, Tabby,” he told her, blinking fully awake. “Do not beg, please. You're my wife. I think you should have your fill of me right now. Is that not why we're abed together?” His voice became deeper then, more sultry as his eyes half-lidded and his hand came to her face. “I ache for you, Alpha. I ache like I've never ached before.”

She kissed him, at first soft and then ravenously. It was an act which both cleared her mind and again shadowed it with lust. There was something about him and his scent that had awakened within her an instinct most primal. Her loins felt as though they were on fire. She burned for him. When she could kiss him no longer, she moved down his body, sliding her flesh against his until the rigid length of her was tucked against the rigid length of him.

“_Tabby...uhhhnnn..._”

She could spend only a few second straining against him, her hips undulating back and forth for friction before she was again overcome by her need for _more._ It wasn't enough—she must sate him. She must sate both him and herself and she must _have_ him.

_Mate! Bite! Breed!_

“_I want you, Tabs, I want you deep. So deep._” He panted, shifting to cradle her between his thighs. Every brush of his hands over her body felt like pure flame lapping at her and she gasped with every touch over her breasts and belly. “_Please. Please..._”

She couldn't make him wait—it would be cruel. With the fog and shadow now descended fully, she lost every word she thought to say, all that could come from her mouth a low rumble. Her lips pulled back from her teeth and she pressed against the entrance of him, sopping with slick and ready for her. When she pushed, she could hear him keening and sighing, mumbling loving words to her over and over until she was pressed fully inside. His long legs crossed at the ankles behind her and she hunched over him, feeling very much like some sort of feral creature.

_Wait. You're. You're Tabitha. You're going to be a Duke. You can't go wild like this._

Reason punctured a little lighted hole through the shadow that had come over her and at least, she thought, there was that. Still, she couldn't help herself. She began to move, seeking at least a little restraint and the power of knowledge. She knew how he liked it. She had to make this good. She had to make him feel good or there was nothing in this for anyone.

“_Tabby I need it,_” he begged softly below her. “_Rut me, Tabby..._”

“_Rrrrrngh..._” she tried, unable to make her mouth move how she wished. She couldn't tell him what she was trying to do. She was trying to go slowly, to make love to him the way he enjoyed.

“_Tabby Cat, I don't have the patience for this. I want you wild. I want you savage. I want you to rut me like I'm a bitch in heat!_”

It was very sudden then that the small pinprick of light that had broken through the shadow winked out of existence and all that was left was the want for pleasure. She lost herself, succumbing to the passion which consumed her readily at his insistence. She bucked, sweat dripping down her body as she worked in and out of him, the knot at the base of her slapping against him with every thrust. The sound barely registered over the constant keening she heard from him, his salient sighs and prurient groans only serving to rile her up further as she took him and held him and growled against his chest.

He raised his head, exposing the length of his pretty pale neck, his moans louder the longer she slapped into him. He was ready, she thought, and it was a complete thought though there was nothing telling her _for what_. She knew by instinct alone for what.

_Mate. Bite. Breed. _ _ **Knot.** _

She pressed hard at the end of a thrust and watched him close his eyes as he winced. She backed off then, giving him a few more thrusts, waiting until he was keening again before she repeated the motion, managing to press a little further this time. The _Alpha_ in her knew what to do and how far she could go and so she trusted it, fucking him nice and deep as he hand came between his thighs and toyed with his smaller manhood, wet with slick and hard as a stone. She did her very best to pleasure him through it, and was still holding him when she managed to fully impale him through a short little shriek.

“_T-T-Tabby! Tabby! Tabby! Uhhhn!_”

Stuck to him and nestled deep between his legs, she found herself somewhat vexed at one issue. From where she was placed—she could not bite him on the neck.

_Oh curse being such a short Alpha!_

Still, she did her absolute best, rocking back and forth as his body squeezed around her until she could stand it no longer and ecstasy overwhelmed her. She let out a cry when she came inside him and flooded him with her spend, her back bowing and all her muscles tensed together. When she was finished, she peered down at him again and blinked slowly, her hand coming over his member and stroking him until he moaned out his own climax, jetting out a thick rope which glistened over the sweat on his chest in the moonlight through the window.

Tabitha, unable to stop herself, collapsed on top of him, unmindful of the sticky mess between them.

He panted beneath her, his scent whirling through contented pleasure and a sated lust. The silver and gold laurel still pinned to his hair was lopsided and glinted in the moonlight as he smiled toward the ceiling.

“Tabby...that was _wonderful_.”

She almost couldn't speak, her voice grating and strange in her own ears. “I'm sorry.”

“_Sorry?_” He laughed and she peered at him, finding it odd that he would. “My Lady, what the devil could you be _sorry_ for? I think I just saw a flash of heaven...”

“I couldn't...bite you. My...I'm too short!”

He sputtered with his next laugh and moved his hands until he could frame her face with them, squeezing her cheeks together a bit so that her mouth was smushed a bit like she imaged a fish looked. “Alpha...you are such an impossible girl. We have how long until this heat is over?”

“I duunn-ouwww,” she tried, her mouth still comically squeezed.

“You do so know. I have about a week or so to have you plowing my ass and tugging my little pudding every few hours—I don't need you to bite me while you're knot-deep.”

“Buuu...”

He let go of her cheeks and gently clapped his hands against her cheeks, stunning her for a moment. “No arguments. As soon as you're not attached to me and I've gotta a few bits of breakfast in me, I'll sit you right in my lap and you can please me with that darling little cunt of yours.”

The boy brooked no argument and ate and drank very merrily that morning from a platter that had been sent up. When he was finished and his scent was beginning to spice again with his arousal, he peered over at her with his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He looked very coy just then and Tabitha was keen not to be made into a fool—though she had clearly lost that battle already.

“Come here, Alpha,” he beckoned, sitting prettily among the pillows at the head of the bed naked like some feral nymph. When she came to him, she couldn't help herself but to succumb to her whims and trace his body with her lips, drinking in his scent and the softness of his flesh. When she had finally crawled into his lap, straddling him and pressing the length of her Alphahood against him, his arms wrapped around her and he held her so that her face was against the slope of his neck. His words were murmurs, sending gooseflesh across her whole body. “_I should like you to bite me when we are like this._”

She lowered herself gently and found him ready for her, sliding into her easily as though they were more practiced that they really were. “Mmn...Dimitri...are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. You're going to love putting your mark all over me when you're squirting and coming all over me like the nasty little marionette you are.”

She couldn't help herself then, laughing while he held her and rocked her in his lap, her own length rubbing deliciously against him as he moved her and helped her bounce over him. It was easy now for things to pile on. Now that she was primed and so ready for passion—she found it quickly. It built brick after brick and she panted against his neck and his throat, nibbling his petal-soft flesh between kisses and cries. She could feel it coming. Rushing over her in waves with every stroke of his manhood inside her.

_God, how is this so pleasurable? Is it meant to be this way?_

She nibbled his ear softly, breathing heavy against him until she heard him sigh.

“I'm going to come, Tabby...I'm going to come! Please...bite me! Bite me! _Alpha!_”

She sank her teeth into him easily and was shocked at the very little resistance there was against them. He held her tight, crushing her against him, her teeth still locked into him as he came inside her, warmth spreading through her body at the knowledge that she had brought him this far. The metallic taste of his blood sated a deep primal part of her yearning desires but it was his hand upon her shaft which drew her into her next pulsing and relentless orgasm.

She was panting against him, licking him clean of his blood at the same and wondering just how far her primal self was willing to go for this odd satisfaction she craved. She was not a mad woman. She was just an Alpha. Rut was a fascinating state that seemed to reduce her down to her very essence as it was this that drove her again and again as they took turns with each other. If allowing the boy to take her as a man can take a woman was wrong--Tabitha lost sight of that question. She was too busy becoming intoxicated by him and by the pleasure he could bring her to entertain moral questions of the like and so she forgot all about them.

Even after heat faded and rut ebbed, she could not entertain the thought that any of this was beyond their polite sensibilities. After all...this was Dimitri. He was seldom polite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wash your hands. Don't touch your face. Stay home if you can and stay safe if you can't.


	16. Epilogue

Months later and it was a crisp winter morning in Oxford. Her father had rented a house there so that she and Dimitri could stay while he went to school and every single evening when he returned from his classes, he would tell her all about his day. Of course, she was getting her own tutoring at home to become a proper Duchess--one who could honor her title and hold it just as well as any other Alpha. So they traded notes, of course, and she thought he perhaps understood more of her lessons than she could understand of his.

“Did you know,” he began over his breakfast, “That there is a speaker on campus today in my field?”

“I do not think you’ve mentioned it,” she replied, curiously peering over his sketches and notes regarding his mushroom samples. He’d been a very busy Omega when it came to his studies and his professors certainly did take him seriously, she thought. It was a good thing he had gone to Oxford rather than some of the other schools, and it was a very good thing (according to her father) that he married first. She had worried about his humble upbringing and the manner of his speech but, as it turned out, the latter had become a weapon against prejudice for the former. Though some may not have appreciated him, at the very least, they did not toy with him.

“Oh yes. My old professor from my American school days. I understand he’ll be presenting the results of his team’s studies into the effects of some mushrooms on human perception. Or should I say, the results of _my_ studies.”

“Oh?”

He sighed. “I...I do not know if I ever told you this, Tabby Cat...but I was in love once. I thought I was in love. It really isn’t as incandescent as what I have with you. It was close...for a little while. A Beta boy named Lucas.”

“Hmm,” she mused, “I’ve never hated someone so much as I do in this moment.”

“I appreciate the sentiment. He stole my research and presented it to my professor as his own. When I argued that the research was mine, my professor rejected my claim, citing that it was far too complex for me to have developed myself. He then suggested that had I not been as…” he licked his lips, searching for his next words, “..._promiscuous _as I am, perhaps I would not have found such misfortune.”

“Ah,” Tabitha replied, taking her tea and sipping it. “I will amend myself. I have never hated someone so much as I do in _this_ moment.” In fact, she could feel that very hatred rising like bile in her throat. Her scent was burning and caustic and floating around her in a cloud.

“If you weren’t doing anything today, I thought you might wish to come with me when I go to see what a disaster his presentation will be.”

“How do you think it will be a disaster?”

He smiled at her graciously. “Because I am going to _make it one_.”

Hours later and they were on the campus and Tabitha was standing as tall as she possibly could, wearing a deep burgundy gown and severely straight feathers in her hair that made her look every bit as intimidating an Alpha as she knew she was. She walked with her mate briskly and ignored absolutely everyone until Dimitri pointed out the man she would most like to gut alive. Schooling herself, she took a deep breath and looked away from him.

“Dimitri,” she said lowly, “do not make eye contact with him. He should not approach us even if he knows you. He requires an introduction to me.”

“Can I not make that?” he asked.

“No, of course not. You’re the Omega. You are introduced, not the other way ‘round.” She sighed, rolling her eyes at him.

“Well he is looking this way though I don’t expect that he’ll wish to speak to me. Especially not if someone has referred to me as a Marquess.” He grinned at her. “You look divine, by the way. I could eat you up. All anger and lace.”

“Do not tease.” Though she did think she liked it when he teased. It lightened the mood at least a little bit and made her think about him how he might be later on in the night when he stuck out his chin at her and pulled at her bodice until he could play with her breasts. She was thinking about this for nearly the entire presentation after they had walked into the small amphitheatre and sat down, and she was shocked to note that it was over soon enough--and Dimitri had sat quietly through the whole thing! That was, of course, before she realized that the professor, whose name she had conveniently forgotten, was hosting a portion in which he would answer any question posed.

She glanced to Dimitri who was sitting calmly, a serene little smile on his face.

Several students posed questions the man seemed to easily answer and then Dimitri raised his voice.

“Professor? I was especially interested in the portion of your talk in which you discussed the hallucinogenic properties of _Copelandia_. Might you provide a source for your study?”

He paused, his lip twitching a bit before he swallowed. “The subject of the hallucinogenic effects of _Copelandia_ are, as yet, the subject of further study by men of science in the field…” he moved to address the rest of the room, “My student whose study was based on that research could better assist with naming his sources, I believe.”

“Ah yes,” Dimitri replied, his voice loud and grating in the still air. “Lucas. Where is the insufferable prick? I should like to see him explain his sources--and I should like you to explain why you took a sourceless study to be in any fashion valuable.”

The Alpha took in a sharp breath through his nose.

“Are you upset?” the Omega asked, and Tabitha could feel a steely confidence exuding from every aspect of him. There was a stillness in the room as all of Dimitri’s peers watched in earnest to see the very rude and confrontational little Omega decide the course of what was clearly a vendetta. “Are you going to tell them all what really happened? How your darling Lucas had to seduce me to find any meaningful research? I suppose after he proved himself very _useless _indeed, you stripped what you could of what he gave you and applied it as you saw fit. But professor...you still don’t have a source for any of that. You’re out here making baseless claims to what amounts to nameless research.”

“My sources are--”

“Bunk, sir. That is what they are. Your sources are actually handwritten journals sent to me by a doctor studying Indian medicine in the Utah Territory. No one has those journals but me and when Lucas stole my research and presented it to you as his own, those studies were not finished completely and lacked the notes that would attribute them to the doctor’s journals. Which means, you have baseless studies and are misrepresenting your facts.”

A gentle murmur came through the crowd.

Dimitri stood and Tabitha stood with him. “Well. That’s all I have to say about that. I’m certain that you’ll stoop to calling me _promiscuous_ again for the sake of your pride but should the powers that be at Oxford look into the details of this presentation, I think they will find more than just your ‘studies’ of _Copelandia_ are baseless at their root. Good day, everyone. I’ll see you all tomorrow bright and early.”

“Wait!” called a low voice off to their left, and Tabitha was poised to interfere, though when she saw the man, she paused. He was a man of middle age, bald with a thick mustache. “My Lord, Omega, I do hope that these claims you make have merit...perhaps you would allow Professor Vrillis to reveal the details of his research and provide us with his sources for comparison.”

Dimitri smiled and it was devious indeed. “Oh yes. I should love that. Would you not love that, Professor?”

Vrillis returned a tight smile. “I believe I will have to gather my materials. I will come to your office tomorrow, Professor Reine, and I shall have all my material for you then.”

“Very well,” the English professor returned.

Of course, Dimitri was in high spirits that night and even in the morning after he’d collected all of his own research together along with the very journals he had mentioned the day prior.

Tabitha examined them, hardly able to decipher the nearly illegible scrawl of a doctor’s hand. “So these are the real sources? What if he’s come up with a forgery or some kind of fraud?”

“I will handle it when I am there. He simply cannot know what he knows. The details of their uses in the civilizations of those communities to the west and to the south...he would have to completely invent a man in a single night...whereas my doctor is well-traveled and has a reputation as an honorable academic.”

Tabitha could sense that the boy was ready for a good fight and he was working himself up into a good frothing bit of rage until he arrived at Reine’s office that morning along with her to find that his former professor had completely vanished in the night. Claiming a vicious stomach cramping, he had taken the first coach he could catch the previous night and had only left a note for Reine to be found the next morning claiming slander and villainy despite his inability to face his accuser fairly.

Dimitri visibly deflated when he was told the news, having placed his sources down upon the English professor’s desk.

“Are these the notes from the American doctor?”

“Doctor Pruitt, yes.”

Reine nodded. “Ah, I remember Dr. Pruitt. A good medical doctor. Steady hands. He was here to visit once and gave a little talk on the study of primitive medicine and the spread of diseases in the Americas.”

Dimitri nodded serenely. “Much of his research into the mushrooms utilized by the American Indians and the Mesoamericans is in these journals. Forgive me if I am very cautious with them, professor...I have been burned before.”

“Well…” he replied easily, “I’ve no reason to look at them, my Lord. I have nothing by which to compare them. I can only assume that Vrillis was unable to collect research notes enough to refute your claims. I should only seek to view them when you have come to my office with your own research and experiments. It is an under-studied area, to be sure. I expect many good things from you, if I can admit so.” He turned his attention to Tabitha, giving her a light bow, much like the one he had given her when she had first entered his office. “You have a very bright little mate here, my Lady. We’re grateful you’ve allowed his study.”

Tabitha gave a slight nod of her head, pretending to appraise Dimitri as he gave her a radiant smile. “Oh yes. I think you’re all richer for having him in your lives despite all his faults and foibles. Though no one is luckier than I.”

Dimitri’s smile transformed into a smug little grin. “Don’t you forget that, Alpha. I daresay, it could be your undoing.”

Tabitha chuckled and nipped at his chin with her fingers. “I won’t forget. Believe me. I have had far too many things make the attempt at becoming my undoing. I would not doubt that you would be the one to succeed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like many, I am out of work right now due to COVID-19 which means I will be doing a whole hell of a lot of writing. To chat with me, gain access to stories on other platforms, or hang out on my Twitch Streams, come join **[my Discord Server.](https://discord.gg/7U7P4z7)**
> 
> You can always lurk, there's no obligation to speak to me.
> 
> As always: Wash your hands, don't touch your face. Stay home if you can. Be safe if you can't.


End file.
